


Through the Looking Glass

by coucherdesoleil



Series: Through the Looking Glass [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, F/M, POV Alternating, Rare Pairings, Science Fiction, Sexual Harassment, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-17 07:35:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 41,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16091000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coucherdesoleil/pseuds/coucherdesoleil
Summary: AU. When Kara Danvers rescues her sister’s plane, her actions cause a rift to open between two worlds. Lost and alone, she tries to understand the new, different Earth in which she now finds herself. By random chance, she finds herself working for one Oliver Queen, CEO of Queen Industries. As a relationship develops, they find themselves fighting an unknown and technologically superior foe.





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Huntress79](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huntress79/gifts).



Notes: In this part, I have recapped some of the events of the pilot episode of 'Supergirl'. I rewatched the episode recently, but I didn't have a word for word synopsis, so any mistakes are mine.

Also, I've never really read the Green Arrow comics and (according to wikipedia anyways) the geography of Star City has tended to vary (heck, even its name has varied between StarLING City and Star City), so I went with my own brain. Again, any mistakes are mine.

I have no connection to Google or Google maps, despite the mention in the text. (Actually, I find the way Google does business to be truly reprehensible, so yeah. Not investing in that any time soon…)

This story is AU and is set early in both ‘Supergirl’ and ‘Arrow’ (i.e. I am pretending that season 1 of both shows coincided).

Finally, please note the **strong trigger warning for sexual harassment** for this section. And yes, the events I describe did actually happen to a real person, but it was not me. Also, this part is rated R. (The rape/non con warning I had on this initially was only there because I couldn't find the sexual harassment tag.)

Italics indicate characters’ thoughts.

Many, many thanks go to my beta reader, Angela. This couldn’t have been good without her help.

Check out [the artwork for this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Het_Big_Little_Bang_Challenge_2018/works/16156706) by huntress79! 

* * *

_’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves_  
_Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;_  
_All mimsy were the borogoves,_  
_And the mome raths outgrabe._

 _“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!_  
_The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!_  
_Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun_  
_The frumious Bandersnatch!”_

(‘Jabberwocky’, in ‘Through the Looking Glass and what Alice found there’, by Lewis Caroll)

* * *

(From season 1, episode 1 of 'Supergirl')

Night had fallen and the streets of downtown National City were crowded with the city’s night life. The air was cold and traces of the day’s earlier rain still lingered.

The bar was crowded, noisy and smelled of the bathrooms down the hall from the main room. Kara Danvers was sitting somewhat dispiritedly in her chair, having just listened to her date ask for another woman’s number.

Suddenly, her stomach dropped in shock as the news began discussing the fact that her sister's plane was in trouble.

A moment later, her hearing caught the straining metallic sounds of a plane desperately trying to stay in the sky, as well as the screams of its passengers and the panic of its crew. She left the restaurant, heading for the alley out back.

Throwing off her jacket and taking off at a run, her determination faltered as she realized that flying after a decade of avoiding what she was, was not an easy feat. Still, she finally managed to get the hang of it (which was a good thing because she couldn't have lived with herself if she’d let her sister and all those other people down). 

As she flew she listened to the ongoing dispute in the plane’s cockpit, as the crew desperately tried both to keep the plane airborne as well as to avoid National City’s tallest landmarks. 

Placing herself both abreast and below the plane, she reached up and caught her hands into the metal of its fuselage, struggling to guide its flight. After finally managing to right its course enough to avoid one of National City’s bridges, she flew down and gently placed the plane in the water. 

Pushing herself out from under the floating plane, she dragged herself onto one of its wings. 

It was odd, really. She could see that people were watching her, which should have caused her some concern, but didn't. She was awash in the exhilaration of the feat she had just accomplished. 

She had saved a plane! *She* had done that, had saved all those people. 

Throwing herself into the sky, she basked in the freedom and exhilaration of flight. As she passed near a patch of ground next to the river she spied burning wreckage, apparently made up of pieces of one of the damaged engines. It was still on fire and she approached it, thinking to put the fire out. 

As she neared it, it suddenly exploded, and *something*… opened. 

…A confluence of events, wherein two different dimensions of existence each experienced one of those freak improbabilities, where the extremely improbable does indeed happen. A confluence of place and time and explosive events between two dimensions suddenly aligned in such a way that multiple events took place simultaneously in both, which lasted only a fraction of an instant of time yet opened a door. Something as improbable as all the air molecules in a room suddenly residing in a single corner of the selfsame room, which would happen so briefly, if at all, that it would never be noticeable to our human experience. 

Human experience however does not apply to someone flying at super speed, fast enough to utilize this bridge between two dimensions. 

Kara lost consciousness and didn't come to until much later. 

* * *

“...The cleanup from the explosion in Star City's Reed & Co. riverfront laboratories continues amid speculation that criminal negligence may have been involved...” 

She awoke in an unfamiliar bed. 

As she glanced around, still somewhat groggy, she realized she was in a hospital bed. The sound of voices drifted over to her, accompanied by the background hum of a television. 

“Rumors surrounding the incident include discussions of a flying woman, who is said to have 'floated' down from the sky...” 

Kara sat up quickly, listening closely to both the television broadcast and the voices surrounding her, when a nurse in the hallway outside spoke into her telephone. 

“Yes, I'm trying to get in touch with the Star City Inquirer?” 

As she listened, Kara looked around for her clothes and located them beside the bed. They were still damp. 

“Yeah, never mind what my name is. I do however have something worth your while.” 

_That doesn't sound good,_ she thought to herself as she pulled off her hospital gown and slipped into her wet clothes. 

“What if I told you that I know of a girl that we can't scan or x-ray, and whose skin causes needles to bend rather than prick her? How much would that be worth to you?” 

_Okay, now I'm definitely not staying here._ She did however need her wallet, phone, and keys, which didn't seem to be any of her pockets. _Crap._

Standing, she began to search the room, quickly finding what she was looking for in the small desk near the bed. 

“Yeah no. I'm telling you that this could be the story of a lifetime. So if you want it, you're gonna have to come up with more than that...” 

Placing the items in her pockets, she stood near the door and listened to the rest of the nurse's conversation. 

“...Yeah, that could work. You'll need to meet me at the end of my shift -I’ll text you the location. And believe me, you won't find her without me, so don't even bother...” 

A pause, where Kara's acute hearing let her overhear the other side of the conversation, in which a male voice provided a somewhat condescendingly reply. 

“Look, I have to hang up now, but I promise you that you won't be disappointed.” 

Hanging up, the nurse turned her attention to her rounds, and footsteps neared Kara's room. By the time they reached it, however, Kara was gone. 

* * *

A few hours later, Kara was halfway across the city. 

She had to admit that she still had no idea where she was. The only thing she was certain of was that she wasn't in National City anymore, as none of the geography seemed to fit. She couldn’t seem to get her phone to work to contact her sister. When she had finally located a payphone (not easy to do nowadays) it had somehow refused to accept her coins. 

But how had she gotten here, wherever here was? And how did she get back home? 

Stepping into a coffee shop and braving the puzzled look she got in reply, she asked a waitress in a coffee shop what the full postal address for her location was -and there it was. 

_What the hell is Star City?_

Ignoring the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, she used the shop’s free wifi to look at the map on her phone and tried to get Google maps plot the distance between her current location and National City. 

It was then that she discovered that according to the internet the city known as National City, in the United States of America, home to roughly two million souls, simply did not exist. 

_Where am I and how did I get here? And how do I get back home?_

* * *

Kara stayed in the coffee shop until closing time. She was desperately trying to understand what had happened to her, yet her mind and various internet searches refused to provide her with any answers to her questions or ideas on how to proceed. She searched the internet for the history of Star City, as well as the United States and the world, and was again puzzled to find that while the history she was reading reminded her of the one she knew, there were also glaring differences. 

She was still trying to puzzle out her situation when the coffee shop closed its doors and she was forced to leave. As she stepped outside into darkness, she realized anew that she truly had nowhere to go. 

_What am I going to do? At least when I first got to Earth I had my cousin and he introduced me to the Danvers, but now there’s literally no one I can turn to._

She had about ten dollars with her and hadn't been able to use her credit or debit cards at the coffee shop: their machine had to all appearances been working but it simply did not recognize her cards. Once she had gotten a good look at the change she had gotten for her coffee, she was taken aback as she realized that even the money she held was slightly different than what she knew. 

_I guess I should just be glad that waitress didn't look too closely at the bill I handed her, because things would have gotten even more complicated otherwise..._

As she walked alongside an unfamiliar river, gazing at the water, she thought about the fact that while it was pretty, it was also wholly unfamiliar to her. She found herself leaning against the wall of a riverfront warehouse, its dark windows giving it a slightly mournful appearance in the setting sun of this Star City. She watched as, in the distance, several police cars and police guarded a badly damaged warehouse. She looked away. 

_Well, I need to find somewhere to go for tonight, anyways. That's the first step. I can try to figure out the rest later -I hope there is an answer though, because right now I don't know what's going on. And I'm scared_

Using her phone and, knowing she wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else to stay without money, she headed for the nearest homeless shelter. 

An hour later, she was sitting on a bed in the women's section of the shelter. She had checked in under her sister's name, just in case the staff at the hospital had noted her name from her identification. Using Alex's name was her way of staying sane by clinging to the hope that her sister would somehow, someday, learn that Kara had been here. 

As she curled up in bed, trying to think cheerful thoughts, she fell asleep. 

* * *

The next morning Kara told herself firmly that since she wasn’t dead yet, things were hardly hopeless: she would figure out what had happened and find a way home. 

Before doing that, however, she needed to find some way to survive in this world. Which meant supporting herself by working. 

She decided to speak to the shelter workers to ask how she could go about getting a job, despite the trepidation she felt at the thought that she wouldn't be able to provide references of any kind. 

_For that matter, my Social Security number might well not be valid here. Wherever here is._

She approached a young woman who appeared to be a volunteer, prefacing her questions with a statement explaining that she had lost her ID and other identifying documents, before asking how she could go about finding work. The women directed her to a counselor whose purpose at the shelter, according to the volunteer, was to ‘help with reintegration’. Whatever that meant. 

Discussing her job prospects with the suggested counselor proved to be a singular exercise in frustration: no, she had no references. No, she didn't have any ID and no one could vouch for her (she skirted the discussion of exactly why this was the case). No, she didn't have a criminal record (of course she didn't, as she had no records of any kind, but she avoided saying anything about that as well). It was then that she realized that with no way to establish her identity, she might find herself unable to work and unable to survive. 

As she discussed her situation with the counselor she began to realize that, despite her attempt at circumspection, the shelter's counselor was beginning to view her with suspicion. She ended the interview when the man sent yet another puzzled look in her direction. 

_Damn._

She left the shelter shortly afterwards. 

* * *

Despite her initial hopeful outlook on the situation, the fact was that after spending the day in the streets of Star City, she still had no ideas on how to change her situation. 

It had rained during the afternoon (which meant that now her clothes were once again damp and beginning to smell musty), during which time she sheltered under an overhang, wondering how her life had come to this. 

Now the sun was setting, she was hungry and tired, and starting to feel desperate. 

She began to walk away from the river, noting as she did so that the appearance of the city began to change. The warehouses, boats, and dusty offices of the city's riverfront were replaced by shops and restaurants in some areas, as well as modest homes and office buildings in others. Eventually, the modest homes made way for more upscale residences, which eventually transformed into what appeared to be mansions, gated communities, and ritzy commercial districts, separated by artistically landscaped parks. 

Walking through Robert Queen park (no clue who that was, either), she came to sit on a bench surrounded by carefully cultivated flower beds surrounding a fountain. The park was empty and quiet and was surrounded by several mansions. 

_This is just a *little* bit above my tax bracket, especially now,_ she thought to herself. 

She found an isolated bench to sit on and sighed. _At this point, I honestly don't think I have a choice. And I'd definitely rather steal from the rich, if I have to steal at all._

Refusing to let herself dwell on what she was going to do, she stood and randomly decided on a target from among the stately creations surrounding her. 

After a brief stretch of time and some superspeeding later, she found herself in the dubious possession of several purloined items, some of which was food. Of course, there was also some money. Quite a bit of it actually, along with some jewelry. 

_So now, Kara Danvers, Kara of the House of El, is a thief. My family would be so proud._

While the food did quiet her stomach, she knew she had to find a better solution. However, as she considered her problem, she realized that the only long-term solution to her dilemma was probably not to be found in Star City's wealthy gated mansions. 

She also realized that the root of her problem was her lack of an official identity. 

_So…forgery it is, I guess. I mean, it’s not like I have much of a choice._

Holding that thought, she began to walk back towards the seedier part of town, thinking about how to go about looking for a forger. 

_I'll have to pawn some of this stuff anyways, and I guess a pawn shop would be a good place to start asking about forgers? Er...without actually asking about forgers, just in case._

Shaking her head at the thought of her naive neophyte self’s new life of crime, she pressed on. 

* * *

In the end, it took longer than she had planned to commit identity fraud. 

This was partly because, as a person normally against such an endeavor, her hopeful timetable for setting up a new identity had been completely unrealistic. The process of finding someone both able and willing to create a new identity for her also turned out to be quite a bit more complicated than she had thought. After a long series of wanderings through a series of seedy third-rate establishments throughout the city and asking what she knew were way too many conspicuous questions to way too many shady characters, she finally found what she had been searching for. The young man in question, who identified himself only via the moniker of ‘Shady’, looked like the stereotypical basement dweller with his rumpled hair and bleary eyes. Despite his vampiric squinting in response to the faint light which the dirty blinds of this final ‘shop’ let enter, she quickly realized that he did appear to know what he was doing. 

As a result she was now the proud owner of a complete set of forged citizenship documents, including a birth certificate, driver's license (‘Shady’ actually made her promise that she did know how to drive for that one, which was amusing in a distressing kind of way), and a working social security number. Best of all, she had been assured that her documents would be entered into the relevant databases, since apparently nowadays the best forgers were primarily hackers, (which actually made much more sense than the image she had initially had of people spending their time copying brushstrokes and thinking about paper weight and brightness, now that she actually thought about it). 

She had wanted some insurance against a con job (mostly because the only thing she did know about a con was being its potential victim) and had therefore promised the man an additional sum of money in addition to the initial and considerable sum requested, to be paid once she was able to confirm that her new identification passed muster. He had quickly agreed and had walked over with her as she attempted to open a bank account (accompanying her had been a protection of his investment, namely by being there in case she opted to run away without coughing up the promised bonus wad of cash). Despite her worries, however, everything had gone smoothly. 

A few days later she was applying for jobs in Star City with her brand new fictitious identification: she had decided to take a chance and, despite the risk posed by her encounter with tabloid enthusiast nurses, opted for the simplicity of using her true name. 

She had carefully weighed various possible stories to explain her lack of references, and after considering and somewhat regretfully discarding more outlandish stories such as having lived in a neo luddite cult, she had opted to claim that she was a recently divorced former housewife. 

Her new background then passed the test when she was promptly hired as an administrative assistant to a mid-level manager in one of Star City's biggest firms, Queen Industries. 

* * *

Queen Industries apparently owned a big part of this city. Her new job was with a department located in the main building for the company, which was a truly huge skyscraper located in the heart of one of Star City’s affluent commercial districts. 

When she walked in on the very first day of her first week after taking a minute to gaze up at its might, she was hopeful. 

Unfortunately, it took only a day for those hopes to be rather spectacularly dashed. 

When she arrived and met her new boss, Mr. Benjamin Williams, he informed her that he preferred to be called 'Ben' by his employees. He was a white man in his early thirties, wearing a high-quality suit and sporting a bit of a paunch. It quickly became apparent that while he took great pains to appear to be the perfect office drone and while he did spend too many hours in a sedentary fashion at his desk, he somehow managed to accomplish surprisingly little. Despite this however, he somehow always managed to appear absorbed when upper management stopped by (something which happened several times during Kara’s first day) and he had somehow apparently managed to avoid being fired. Her fellow lower level drones eventually told her why. 

“Oh, he only pretends to work. He actually spends most of his time trying to schmooze upper management -I'm pretty sure that's the only reason he still has a job. Well, that and that he's actually the son of one of the founders of the original company.” 

This particular bit of information was relayed to her in a conversational tone by the dispirited looking young man in the cubicle across from hers, named Roger. Roger had been hired for his subject area expertise in the field of renewable energy sources and had been told he would have a position with some seniority. Post-hire however, he had discovered that his actual role was to carry out much of the work that Ben was supposed to be doing. 

According to other fellow employees, Ben's parents had reportedly started their own company specializing in renewable energy sources, prior to the company being sold to Queen Industries for a pretty penny. Ben had been hired to help with the integration of the smaller company into the machine that was Queen Industries, which was part of Roger's problem: Queen Industries was by far the largest player in Star City in a great many areas, despite being new to the field of renewable energy, and leaving on bad terms might result in his having difficulty finding work again. Based on the way he simply volunteered the information without knowing her or her potential desire to ingratiate herself to her superiors at the expense of her coworkers (a consideration since the information he relayed was prejudicial to their direct superior), Kara could only conclude that he hated his job so much that he must have stopped caring. Or maybe it was that he knew Ben would never fire the man doing his actual work so he didn't have to -assuming Roger spoke the truth of course, which seemed a pretty safe bet given what she had been witness to so far. 

For herself, Kara was not unused to demanding bosses: while Kara respected and admired her, the fact was that Ms. Grant had definitely not always been a ray of sunshine. Her new boss, however, took things to a whole new level and as it turned out, the beginning of her first day was to set the tone for the rest. 

When she arrived that first morning and introduced herself, he made her stand for an hour in his office while he chatted with two other male managers: she excused herself when the topics discussed veered into heterosexual pornography. He then began her work day by sending her to carry out meaningless and humiliating errands, apparently out of sheer spite. He sent her to fetch coffee three times and berated her, making sure to insult her intelligence, because the coffee was too cold and because she had gotten it from their building's cafeteria rather than a coffee shop he apparently preferred, which was several streets away. He ranted at her when she printed out documents he had specifically asked for: Kara eventually realized that what he had actually wanted were background documents for a meeting with other members of Queen Industries later in the day, but that he had asked her to print documents relating to a meeting which took place a few days earlier instead. He then chewed her out for not contacting Queen Industries' legal department regarding the meeting: it would indeed have made sense to do so, as the meeting pertained to a new commercial venture which would provide cheap, and in some cases free, solar panels and small wind turbines to Star City's poorer residents. There would certainly have been considerable legalese involved in setting up a sales process which involved public subsidies originating from several government programs at both the local and state level. 

How she could have known this when she first began, as this was literally her first day on the job and she had had no idea such a meeting was even scheduled escaped her. After attempting to print the documents he did need for the meeting without her help and succeeding only in causing a major paper jam incident with the printer (and potentially further damaging Queen Industries property by hitting it), he berated her for that as well and left for his meeting in a huff. 

The last part of her day had been a welcome respite while her new boss was in his lengthy meeting. She spent her time learning how Queen Industries' filing systems and computer network functioned, took calls for her new boss and completed various administrative tasks which had been assigned to her. By the end of the day however, just as she was about to leave, ‘Ben’ called her into his office. 

She stood quietly for a few minutes as he moved around and stared at her. “You know, Kara, I wanted to ask you about...” He paused, breathing rapidly, and stopped talking. 

Kara was puzzled. Why did he call her in here, exactly? “Was there something you needed, sir?”, she asked, as he continued to move around. 

It was then that she suddenly understood: his breathing was getting faster -he was literally panting now. She felt like throwing up and, frozen in shock, turned to walk out of the office as her boss continued to masturbate right in front of her. 

He called out to her at that moment, “Don't leave! You want this job, don't you?”, were the last words he said as she walked out of the room, shaking. 

Once outside his office she noted that everyone else had left for the day. She leaned her head against the wall, trying not to vomit. 

After a few minutes, she pushed herself off the wall and began to walk home to her new (hopefully temporary, once she found a way to get home to National City) apartment. 

Stopping near a pretty little fountain in a small park, she looked down into the water. She was nauseated and hurt and shaking. 

She moved to sit on a bench. What would she do now? She wondered, feeling discouraged and lost in this strange place. 

One thing was certain: she wasn't going to work for that asshole anymore. Not under those conditions. She'd rather keep stealing, if it came to that. 

_…What would Alex do?_ She thought to herself, and smiled nastily at the thought of just what her sister would have done to Williams. 

The thought of Alex and her reaction cheered her and firmed her resolve. 

_On the other hand, I don't think he realizes who he was dealing with here,_ she told herself firmly. _That asshole may think this is how it's gonna go down but it's not._

* * *

When she woke up the next morning, she got dressed and went immediately to Queen Industries' human resources department to lodge a complaint. 

Unfortunately, as it turned out, the same mid-level managers who were friends of 'Ben' were apparently in charge of the HR department. Roger and a few others in her new office had actually mentioned this fact to her, but she had somehow naively hoped they would do their jobs properly anyways. That wasn't too much to ask, was it? 

However, she realized just how foolish that hope was after being ushered into the office of a balding middle aged man (named Hoskins) whose face bore a miserly attempt at a goatee which clung to his jowly face. While he appeared to listen to her story and informed her he would look into it, she had wanted to be sure. 

She had therefore hung around near the man's office for a while, pretending to use her phone. It didn't take long for her fears to be confirmed. 

“...Yeah, she just came in. Complained about you in quite a bit of detail actually.” 

A pause. 

“What do you want me to do about it? Yeah sure, let's talk about it. I'll meet you in the cafeteria. Yeah don't worry, I've got it under control.” He hung up. 

Kara left. 

She knew she was done here at Queen Industries, but she decided she had one last thing she needed to do before she left. 

After determining that ‘Ben’ was not in his office or at a meeting, she headed towards the building's large cafeteria and restaurants. It was a very large expanse consisting of the cafeteria and several restaurants located in a kind of promenade, which she hadn't had the chance to explore yesterday. 

She found 'Ben' and his crony at a table near one of the doors to the cafeteria. They looked up in surprise as she walked towards them. 'Call me Ben' opened his mouth, but she interrupted before he could speak, speaking loudly enough to ensure that the people at the nearby tables could hear. 

“Don't worry, I'm not staying. Before I leave though, I just wanted to let you know that you are a vile, disgusting, and cowardly excuse for a human being. Someone who thinks preying on people, especially women, that you have power over is fun. And you'd better believe me, I will find a way to let everyone know that you are a disgusting abuser who sexually harasses and assaults women, even if I have to take an ad out in the local paper myself.” 

Walking over to him, she picked up the cup of coffee sitting in front of him (apparently he didn't mind cafeteria coffee when he was getting it himself) and dumped it into his lap. 

“Have a nice life, asshole.” She said, before walking off. 

* * *

...And honestly, she had truly thought that would be the end of it. 

However as it turned out, Ben and his friend had left the cafeteria in a hurry after her own departure, in order to avoid the probing gaze of other Queen Industries employees. Somehow they failed to notice that their boss and the local tabloid wonder, Oliver Queen, had entered the room along with his friend and bodyguard John Diggle, just in time to witness the entire exchange. Oliver frowned as he watched them leave. 

_I know I'm only starting out here, but it looks like I may have more of a problem than I thought._

Turning on his heel, he left quickly, taking out his phone and dialing a number from memory. 

“Hi, Felicity? Can we talk? There's something I'm going to need you to look into for me.” 

END PART 1


	2. Part 2

Author’s comment: I always thought it was a bit unfortunate that Oliver didn’t get to do more outside of his heroic persona -other superheroes manage to have careers so why not him? (And yes I realize that unlike some other superheroes Oliver is an unaugmented human, but still.)

In the show, Oliver only took over as CEO of Queen Industries for a brief period in season 2. However, I’m giving that part of the story a bit of a makeover. LOL. 

Also, full disclosure: when I first started writing this I goofed on when the CEO thing happened in that I thought it was season 1 but it was season 2 (and for some reason I forgot to look it up). Then, once I realized I have made a mistake and thought about changing it I also realized I preferred things that way and decided not to change them. 

Italics indicate characters’ thoughts. 

* * *

Oliver Queen glanced up at the wooden placard announcing 'Mom & Pop's Deli', uncertain what his reception would be. 

Two weeks ago he had witnessed one of Queen Industries' employees (he had only been in charge of the company for a few weeks, so he admitted that he didn't always tend to think of these people as 'his' employees) accuse her direct superior of sexual harassment and abuse. 

He had charged Felicity Smoak, who was one of the very few people he trusted, to look not just into Ms. Danvers' allegations but also into the entirety of the HR department’s activities. A quick (and, as Felicity admitted, probably illegal) hack of their personal email accounts had revealed that the three managers of the department liked to boast of their 'conquests' and, based on the language used, it was likely that several of these encounters were not consensual. Based on what she had found, it seemed that QI's Human Resources was run by individuals who were both incompetent and abusive towards their employees. 

He had spoken with the men in question himself but had not been not surprised when his efforts hadn’t turned up anything. Knowing that any further attempts he made would most assuredly be noted and relayed to those he was trying to investigate (there was a definite downside to being a media celebrity, and all in all he could have happily forgone the experience). Aside from digging into HR's emails and computer files, he had also asked Felicity to try to approach some of the identified victims as well as other employees who might have had similar experiences (and who could have responded more favorably to a woman, given their experiences). The few responses she had gotten thus far, despite her avowal of being much less comfortable with this aspect of the investigation, had certainly been illuminating. The combined evidence had been sufficient to justify the firing of certain individuals, yet the investigation was still ongoing. 

He had made several attempts to get in touch with Ms. Danvers, yet his repeated telephone messages were never returned. Given what had happened to her, he had hesitated to visit her at home. Felicity had however discovered that she had found a new job, which was why he now stood in front of a restaurant that appeared to have seen better days a few centuries ago. (In a perhaps vain attempt to have his attempt to contact her appear less frightening, he had come alone.) Sighing, he stepped inside. 

The decor was an unfortunate combination of an attempt at 1950s diner booths mixed in with a few mismatched tables and chairs, several of which appeared to have various dried food items such as gum and ketchup stuck to them. The walls seemed to have been white in a previous life but were now mostly yellow, probably from years of cigarette smoke which had never been cleaned or repainted and despite a citywide ordinance banning smoking in public venues having been passed eons ago. 

He looked around the place, trying to spot Ms. Danvers, when a harried looking waitress came up to seat him. When he refused and asked her whether he could speak with Kara Danvers, she gave him a curious look before directing him to the back of the establishment. 

_She looks unhappy,_ he thought as he finally caught sight of her. 

And she did: he waited as he overheard her being dressed down by a woman, probably a manager, who appeared to be ranting at her for something. Which, given the state this place was in, most likely wasn't her fault. 

_Well, not unless she cooks the food, and honestly even then it really is the management who should take responsibility for the problems with this place. I know I wouldn't eat here if I could avoid it..._

She stood there rather stoically until the woman was finished, then turned around and pasted a smile on her face and walked towards him. 

He held up a hand as she approached him. “I'm actually just here to see you, Ms. Danvers.” 

She gave him a puzzled look. “Me? Um, I don't think we know each other,” she replied quietly, casting a furtive look in the direction of the recently departed manager. “Look, I'm not really supposed to just stand here and talk -”

“I know,” he replied, cutting her off, “but this is important. Is there somewhere where we could speak in private?” 

She seemed to think about it for a moment, then nodded. “All right. Why don't you meet me outside? I'll just take my break now.” 

She turned away as he nodded his thanks and heard her mutter, “This'd really better be good, because she's not going to like this...” 

He stepped out of the restaurant to wait for her. After two to three minutes, she joined him outside and stood, gazing at him expectantly. 

“What is it?” She asked. 

“I've actually been trying to contact you for two weeks...” He paused, considering how to explain. 

“I'm Oliver Queen and I’m currently running my family’s company. I understand that you recently left-,” he stated, and watched as she immediately began to shake her head. 

“I don't think there's any point in talking about it. I mean, your HR didn't care.” She said, the suspicion evident on her face. 

He held up his hands, hoping she would listen to him. “Look, I promise I'm not here to defend what Williams did. What I wanted to tell you was that I actually overheard what you said to him and Hoskins before you left the company. I also wanted to tell you that a few people have already been fired...” He trailed off, looking at his watch, “as of three hours ago. That includes both Williams and Hoskins.” 

She looked at him with mistrust, appearing to find him wanting. Which, honestly, wasn't something he was used to and was pretty unsettling. 

After a brief silence, she spoke. 

“I tried going to the media, you know. No one was interested. It wasn't said to me in so many words, but I was made to understand that no one wanted to take your family on, especially since you also seem to own a good part of the media in this town. The only people who were actually willing to publish anything about it were pretty far out of the mainstream. I mean, it got published, but only in a few rags no one will ever read.” 

She paused, then continued, “So you tell me. Exactly why should I believe you or give you the time of day?” 

He sighed. She was entirely right. He certainly hadn’t paid attention when his parents had run the company but Walter Steele, who had taken over afterwards, had been a very careful, conscientious, and *ethical* individual. He had also been very knowledgeable and had become a mentor when Oliver had taken over as CEO. Oliver had discussed the issue with him and had witnessed the man’s shock at the revelations regarding the company. The question of how this had occurred was therefore one they deeply wanted to answer. 

The only explanation which Oliver had been able to come up with was that no one seemed to have dared to bring the problem to them, which was deeply troubling. 

He was under no illusions where his family’s ruthlessness in business matters was concerned (Walter had been a notable exception in that regard). It wasn’t something he agreed with at all, quite honestly, but he could well imagine that they wouldn’t have wanted the media they owned to provide negative coverage of their bread and butter. Despite this however, to the best of his knowledge, neither his parents nor Walter had ever tried to steer editorial policy in the way other media owners and conglomerates were wont to do in this country. However, given how wrong he had been about other things of late, it was certainly possible that he was wrong about that as well and there might be yet another aspect of the huge monster that was Queen Industries that he would have to take on. 

She wouldn't believe him if he tried to tell her he wasn't responsible for that though, and he honestly couldn't blame her. 

“Ms. Danvers, I came because I wanted to say that I’m sorry.” He paused and took a deep breath before continuing, considering his words, because he really hoped she would let him try to make this right. 

“I also wanted to offer you a job.” 

“What?” He could tell from her expression that she was one second away from walking away and slamming the dingy restaurant’s door in his face. 

“What happened to you was unacceptable. I've ordered an investigation into Human Resources and several other departments. I want to see to it that this kind of thing never happens again, and I thought you might be able to help me with that.” 

“Help how?” She was still suspicious. 

He looked her straight in the eye. “I'm going to be completely honest here. I only took over at Queen Industries a few weeks ago...” Based on her expression he surmised that this was news to her, which was surprising. 

“What happened to you has made me understand that there is a lot that needs fixing in my family's company, both in terms of personnel and policy. I also honestly don't entirely know who I can trust to help me do that, but I figure that I could trust you to want to fix things as much as I do.” 

“Would you by any chance want to do that?” He truly hoped that she would say yes. 

She pursed her lips and thought about it for a few moments. Finally, she seemed to come to a decision. “If I agree, what exactly are you proposing? And how do I know it's not just a way to shut me up?” 

He smiled, relieved that she seemed to at least be willing to consider his offer. “Well, the way I see it, the only way to go would be to make you my personal assistant. That would give you the power to help me overhaul things, because any orders you gave would be seen to come from me.” 

She didn’t trust him: that was obvious. Despite that however, fifteen minutes later she had agreed to a contract of a month. She had been surprised when, upon mentioning the fact that she had resorted to posting her story online, he simply shrugged and stated that he personally believed her and that anything that was true (and which didn’t violate company rules on confidentiality, copyrights and so on) was her story to tell. 

The contract he had agreed to have drawn up for her included a guarantee, in writing, that she could still pursue the topic of her harassment in any way she subsequently chose to. After a month, the contract would have a renewal option in the event she didn't find him to be too much of an asshat. 

_All right, so that's my way of putting it. She was a lot more polite. But firm._

He walked away smiling. 

* * *

Quentin Lance walked into the Star City police department a few mornings later while nursing a splitting headache.

 _Laurel is probably right when she says that this job has a really bad effect on my blood pressure,_ he thought to himself. He’d certainly worked through a lot of double shifts of late. 

_Back to business,_ he thought tiredly, walking into his lieutenant's office. 

“Any news?” the man said, looking up from the report he was reading. Lieutenant Espinoza was a middle-aged black man with graying brown hair and steely eyes, who had paid his dues as a police officer and detective in another city prior to transferring to Star City. Quentin respected him deeply, as did the other men and women of the precinct: the lieutenant had gone to bat many times both to protect his people and in order to do the right thing, even when it wasn't the popular thing to do. 

“Nope. I asked around, talked to his friends, neighbors, everyone who knew him. No one saw a thing.” 

“So it's just like the others, then.” Espinoza replied. 

Lance nodded. “Yeah. So that makes twenty-three disappearances in the past six months. Most of which we haven't been able to make any progress with, much less solve. And I don't know about you, but it feels to me like there's some kind of connection between at least some of these. Otherwise, how do we explain the numbers? I know it's mostly been transients that have disappeared, but that many people don't generally commit suicide or have accidents or decide to leave all at once, no matter what 'alternative explanations' are helping the politicians sleep at night.” 

Espinoza nodded. “Agreed. None of it makes sense to me either. Here's the latest on the Grimes case, by the way.” He handed Lance the file he had been reading. 

The file in question detailed the investigation into the disappearance of one Shelley Grimes, a local homeless woman who had to all appearances vanished from the streets of Star City a few months earlier. Shelley had actually been quite well known among Star City's downtrodden both for her wild conspiracy theories about governmental spying and for her the help she attempted to provide to those living on the streets of Star City, despite her own situation. What was unusual in her case was the fact that there were witnesses, as most of the recent cases had involved people seemingly vanishing into thin air. A few individuals had overheard her arguing with a ‘well dressed’ man shortly before her disappearance (from what Lance had gathered, around The Glades, that simply implied 'not homeless'). 

As it turned out, a few cameras had also caught an image or two of the man, enough so that they were able to obtain footage which they had first had enhanced prior to running facial recognition software. (Lance, after reading up on the technique, still had his doubts about its efficacy, but they’d had to try something.) They had eventually released the image to the media. 

_Which led to exactly nothing. Zip. Nada._ It was truly frustrating. 

“So we have nothing so far.” He said aloud as he placed the file back on his superior’s desk. 

Espinoza nodded. “The brass has been up my ass about the time we've already spent on these.” 

He sighed. “You're a good detective, Lance, and I trust your instincts. I agree with you: something is going on here and we need to find out what it is. I'll talk them down somehow. Just make sure you dot all your Is and cross all your Ts because they're not really happy with me right now because of this.” 

He gave Lance a firm look. “You find whoever is doing this.” 

Lance nodded and walked back out of the office to get to work. 

* * *

Six months after Oliver made his dramatic job offer, Kara's life had changed rather drastically. As for her new job, it had turned out to be both much more rewarding and frustrating than she could have anticipated. 

Oliver had certainly NEEDED an assistant, as she had realized upon glancing at the tangled state of his office files. Why he hadn't hired someone before was something she couldn't understand, though she could concede that he hadn't been at the head of his family's company until quite recently. She also quickly came to realize that a certain level of chaos had ensued when employees who had tried to contact him had frequently found themselves unable to reach him. It had also been an eye-opening experience to discover just how much power the Queens wielded in this town: as the Big Boss’ personal assistant she had found that his name opened more doors than she had even conceived of. 

One aspect of her job which had been particularly rewarding had occurred when she had contacted (and in some cases befriended) the many people who had been wronged by Ben Williams and his ‘friends’. Her report on that situation had resulted in the last of his cronies being fired, which she attributed largely to conditions being put in place such that people finally felt secure enough to come forward. That part of her job had also resulted in an unexpected bonus when she met Felicity Smoak. 

As it turned out, she and Felicity had a lot in common. While Kara readily admitted that she wasn’t an MIT graduate and that Felicity was a much more accomplished nerd than she was, they had a very similar sense of humor. Both appreciated the occasional practical joke as well as most types of comedy (including the occasional potty humor flick, truth be told). Felicity also *understood* what Kara had gone through -she had competed and frequently outperformed male students and even some professors during her time at M.I.T., where she had even been stalked. Two weeks into her time at Queen Industries Kara had invited Felicity over for a girls’ movie night and the two had been fast friends ever since. 

She had also gotten to know Oliver’s bodyguard and friend, John Diggle, who had been much friendlier and more approachable than Oliver himself. She had quickly found that the fastest way of determining whether Oliver would be reachable in the near future was to call Diggle, who could always be counted on to give her an honest answer. It was also refreshing that, while Diggle seemed to like and respect Oliver, he was also the kind of person who would not hesitate to inform his employer when he was being an idiot. 

She had learned a lot about running a business and, by dint of hard work, had managed to do some good things for the company. Most of the time, Kara liked her job and found it fulfilling. 

Most of the time. 

One problem, as it turned out, was her boss. It went without saying that he was a definite improvement over ‘Ben’ and several other bosses she had had. On the other hand, if she were to be honest, Kara would have had to admit that she truly didn’t know what to make of him. 

Kara’s first problem with Oliver Queen was his occasional foray into, as she had come to call it, ‘idiot asshole’ territory. Most of the time he worked very hard (when he wasn’t disappearing to somewhere mysterious and incommunicado). He also definitely wasn’t an idiot. As his personal assistant she knew for a fact that he had made several changes to the company which had given a serious boost to its revenue stream. He had been behind the company’s efforts to branch out into some new sectors in order to both diversify and offset the decreased revenue from some of Queen Industries’ more traditional revenue sources. (She had first discovered this when listening to the company’s accountants make the final touches to their latest quarterly report and, notwithstanding their desire to please their employer, their report had been glowing.) 

Queen Industries had actually begun many years ago in shipping, but now touched on a truly huge number of areas including pharmaceuticals (which included an R&D division), various products including processed foodstuffs which could be found in grocery shelves around the nation, and a new line of environmentally friendly products for home and garden (the latter actually a new creation courtesy of Oliver). Among the changes to the company, Oliver had opted to make serious improvements to its ethics, notably by making it greener and by halting production of items which were damaging to the environment. He had also terminated several ventures which had not proven profitable and managed to refocus QI’s efforts on what was working. He had accomplished this while going out of his way to avoid firing people: most such modifications led to people being assigned to new departments which suited their particular skill sets, while those few who were incapable of accepting and working with the changes were given generous severance packages and/or pensions. 

So he definitely wasn’t an asshole, either. 

Which was why she couldn’t understand why he invariably turned into both a complete idiot and an asshole whenever even a single camera was present. 

The last incident had been involved a reporter who had asked to interview him regarding the changes he had made to the company: not only had he shown up late, but late AND apparently drunk. He had stumbled into the furniture and talked loudly and nonsensically about football, refusing to answer the reporter’s questions. However, when the woman had finally left in a disappointed huff he had immediately returned to his usual serious (and not drunk) self and had immediately gotten back to work. What was more, if he had had even one drink, Kara would have known (she did have super senses after all), and he hadn’t. She was truly at a loss to explain why he felt it was necessary to pretend to be something he wasn’t, especially when that something wasn’t exactly flattering. 

The second problem Kara had with Oliver was his absenteeism. Despite his apparent work ethic, there had been several instances where a major situation had arisen at the company and Oliver’s input had been rather desperately required, yet he had been unavailable. And unreachable. Incommunicado. 

Kara had tried to raise the topic with him, only to be told very politely but firmly that sometimes he wouldn’t be available and that she was paid to deal with it. From what she had discovered, he seemed to have a serious objection to normal avenues of communication (such as the phone) when away from the office. Unfortunately for her and the rest of the company, his absences took place with considerably more frequency than she would have first thought. As for what he did whenever he disappeared, it was both a complete mystery to her and apparently NONE OF HER BUSINESS. 

She had to admit that she had felt that last part was a bit unfair. The truth was that she simply hadn’t had the knowledge or the experience to deal with all of the ramifications of the situations which could arise at such a huge company. It had also been rather unexpected, mostly because he hadn’t even hinted at this being a part of her job when he offered to hire her. It was certainly possible that he simply hadn’t realized the position he was putting her in, since this seemed to all be rather new to him as well. The truth however was that she would have had difficulty figuring things out even if it had been a small company. Queen Industries most assuredly wasn’t that -the behemoth was firmly ensconced among the Fortune 500, as it turned out. And while she did feel honored that he trusted her enough to figure everything out, she honestly thought that he needed to learn to trust others more. 

Somehow, by burying herself in the work, Kara had managed to avoid making truly huge mistakes. One thing she had decided on from the beginning was that even if Oliver had a hard time trusting people, she wasn’t going to let that affect her where business was concerned. In other words, one of her best weapons had been carefully delegating various tasks to the most qualified people she could find. She had also decided early on that if he left her in the lurch and stated that he wanted her to handle things, he couldn’t very well complain about her decisions afterwards. 

From her first days in her new job Kara had realized that she couldn’t handle everything without involving other people. She knew that she just didn’t have the knowledge and skills required: she wasn’t an accountant, so she’d had to call on the company’s accountants when the banks came calling about various details pertaining to the company’s finances. She also didn’t know anything about pharmaceuticals, so she’d had to call on the firm’s pharmaceutical R&D people to help when issues arose involving unexpected side effects resulting from the use of one of Queen Industries’ latest creations. After much consideration and tortuous deliberation with the various people involved, that situation had required her to pull the drug from the market. This had made several people in the pharmaceutical department very unhappy with her. She had however decided that she was damned if she was going to let a potentially hazardous product be on the market while she had anything to say about it -and even the experts hadn’t been able to provide any good arguments in the face of the side effects data. That particular snafu had resulted in quite a bit of insomnia on her part, which had actually turned out to be somewhat useful when her midnight reading had resulted in her being able to cite the precautionary principle as a reason for her decision. Despite this, the worry and anxiety involved in facing down the irate managers of the pharmaceutical division had stayed with her for some time. She also wasn’t an expert in the physics or the mechanics of commercial renewable energy sources, so she’d had to call in various experts when issues arose surrounding Queen Industries’ solar panels. These were meant to be a more affordable alternative to what was already on the market, but problems had arisen when she read the accounting department’s report on the panels, which had stated that ‘soft’ costs were on track to be essentially the same as the rest of the market despite hefty government subsidies specifically earmarked to offset those costs. She had opted to sicc the company’s accountants on the entire department involved in the panels’ production, in order to figure out where the money was going and to ensure everything was aboveboard. 

Therefore, her role at the company and Oliver’s frequent absences had resulted in a great deal of anxiety as she had found herself responsible for things she hadn’t been prepared for or knowledgeable about. It was also true that some of her decisions had made her some enemies. On the other hand, while that fact had definitely kept her up at night a time or two, she had also come to realize that most of Queen Industries’ people seemed to value her hard work as well as her honesty and ethics. 

This had been amply demonstrated in several meetings where several individuals from various areas of the company had defended her handling of the various situations and crises which had arisen: for example, several of the accountants had sent written memos to Oliver praising her efforts at increased financial transparency. This had prompted Oliver not only to congratulate her on her efforts but also to modify the company’s financial policies, particularly where use of public monies were concerned. In general, it also hadn’t hurt that Oliver had backed up every one of her more controversial decisions, once he deigned to make himself available again. So all in all, Kara had begun to prove that she could handle the job and that she just might even have a bit of talent for business, thank you very much. 

Therefore despite the difficulties, her job was something she had unexpectedly come to enjoy. In fact, all in all life was now pretty good (or at least much better than it had been) for Kara. 

Still, aside from her boss’ somewhat eccentric nature, there were definitely still some personal issues she struggled with. In particular, she had been extremely leery of using her powers and hadn’t since her arrival. She still had no idea how she had ended up in Star City or whether she would ever be able to go back home. 

And she missed her foster family. 

_I wonder what Alex would say about this place,_ she thought to herself one day as she walked to work. It was a beautiful spring day and throughout the city both trees and flowers were beginning to come alive. As she stepped into the Queen Industries building lobby, Kara felt energized and ready to get to work. 

Unfortunately, that feeling lasted until she arrived at her office on the forty-third floor, where she was greeted by the usual chaos. Chaos which she was expected to deal with, as she had somehow (and unexpectedly) become not only a personal assistant but also effectively co-CEO of Queen Industries. 

_Of course, there’s still plenty of time for me to screw up in a truly spectacular way,_ she thought to herself as she walked into a situation. She figured she’d begin by trying to get the two angry men before her to lower the volume of their argument. 

“Miss Danvers!” 

“Yes, that’s me,” she replied. “What… seems to be the problem?” 

One of them, a pale looking young man who didn’t seem to have ever been exposed to much sun, replied, “Well… I was hoping to get Mr. Queen’s approval…”

Kara’s office served the combined function of office and bulwark, in that it was necessary to walk through her office in order to get to Oliver’s. Judging from the closed door and the lack of light visible beneath his door, Kara knew that Oliver wasn’t in his office. Which meant a discussion with him wasn’t going to happen. 

On the other hand, if there was one thing Kara had learned the hard way, it was that not every problem was a problem for Oliver to deal with. Or for her to deal with, for that matter. “I’m afraid he isn’t here.” 

The young man before her began to wring his hands in obvious worry. “It’s just that I’ve stayed up all night to deal with this report for the regulatory department. I wouldn’t have bothered him with this but he did tell us that we could come to him if we were having trouble…”

The second man interrupted him brusquely, “I *told* Karl it wasn’t necessary. I also told him that he should go to HR if he had a complaint, and not bother Mister Queen.” 

Kara carefully nodded. If there was one area where Oliver agreed that he should have been clearer both when he first took over as CEO and afterwards, it was in communicating and clarifying his readiness to listen and deal with his people’s problems. Given what had happened to her and to other employees, he had wanted people to be able to come to him when needed (definitely important, as evidenced by what had happened to her in her previous position). However, he had failed to appreciate the fact that proper channels were also important since a CEO was literally only one person (of course, one had to ensure those channels were adequate, which had been a big part of the problem in her case). 

Taking Karl aside, she promised his argumentative friend she would deal with the situation. Waiting until the second man had left, she encouraged Karl to have a seat. “I need to ask this, because it’s important for the company. Is there a reason you didn’t feel comfortable taking this to HR? That isn’t a criticism of you.” Kara said carefully. 

“It’s all right. I know you have to ask.” Karl nodded, evidently feeling better now that someone was listening to him. “I just know that they don’t usually do anything about this. I mean, I tried discussing the fact that I was having a hard time with them a few months ago but they just wouldn’t listen.” 

Kara nodded and decided to deal with the situation directly. “Why don’t we go there now and talk to them together.” She said. He nodded and together they left her office. 

* * *

By the end of the day, Kara had dealt with three different departmental deadlines (she had to make sure all departments were taking the proper steps to comply with the applicable federal, state, and municipal laws and regulations, which required her to be present at various meetings preparing quarterly reviews for several departments), two regulatory requests for documentation (wherein she had to ensure that each request was forwarded to the correct individual(s) in the company, as well as make sure that it was dealt with in a timely manner), as well as young Karl’s distress and her employer’s being a no show for that day. 

She had taken Karl over to HR and had ensured that the proper action would be taken to deal with his concerns: a supervised meeting was organized with Karl’s superior under the auspices of HR. As he had also reported feeling both tired and overworked, he was encouraged to visit his doctor and consider a leave of absence if required, to be paid for by Queen Industries’ generous medical coverage for its employees. 

Therefore, as she walked back to her office at the end of a very long yet productive day, she could have been forgiven for feeling both exhausted and a little smug. 

Upon reaching her office, however, her acute hearing caught a muffled sound coming from beyond the closed door to Oliver’s office. She paused, wondering what might be going on, then walked over and opened the door. 

She gasped in shock at the sight that met her eyes: Oliver was lying on the floor of his office, apparently unconscious and with a bloody head wound. Running into the office and putting out a hand to touch him, thinking to try to take his pulse (or something), she was somewhat startled when he moaned and seemed to come slightly awake. 

“Oliver!” She yelled as she knelt down next to him, looking around to try to find something that might work as a bandage to staunch the bleeding. She turned her attention back to him as he grabbed her hand. His eyes were now open. 

“…Sorry. I didn’t manage to get…” He began, when Kara interrupted him. 

“Don’t try to talk. I’m calling an ambulance.” 

Oliver shook his head. “No ambulance. Call… Call John, or Felicity.” 

“What?” Kara asked, not believing what she was hearing. 

He gave her a firm yet imploring look. “PLEASE. Just do it.” 

Shaking her head in disbelief, Kara nonetheless took out her phone to do what he asked. After a wait which lasted only a few minutes but felt considerably longer, both Diggle and Felicity burst into the room. 

Diggle was shaking his head. 

“I swear, I leave you alone for one hour…” He said as he sat on the floor next to Oliver, “You need a doctor, genius. Who did this to you, anyways?” 

Oliver shook his head, and Kara noticed his purposeful glance towards her own self before he spoke, “Let’s deal with that later, okay?” 

He and Diggle argued back and forth for a time, before Oliver finally and reluctantly agreed to go to a discreet private clinic. (The clinic in question were known to take care of celebrities while remaining mum over who and what and where and when.) He did however insist on walking out of the building without assistance, after having made a brief attempt at cleaning up his appearance (though he was still clad not in his usual business suit, but in some kind of ragged dark pants and t-shirt combo). Oliver and Diggle insisted that the situation was well in hand and Felicity therefore opted to leave, but Kara insisted on going with him and Diggle when they drove to the clinic, wanting to ensure he made it there in one piece. 

One doctor’s consultation and a CT scan later, Oliver was diagnosed with a concussion and a scalp laceration, which was sown up by the tight-lipped doctor. After paying what Kara felt was an obscene amount of money which didn’t even seem to faze Oliver, they were once again on their way. 

Once Oliver had painstakingly climbed into his car and Diggle offered to drive her home, she shook her head. “Look, no offense, but I just found my boss lying in a pool of blood. I have no idea how that happened, but I think that if I’m going to continue doing the work I’ve been doing for him, I have a right to know whether he’ll be around for me to do it. So I’m going to drive him home and we’re going to talk -assuming he’s able to. But if he can’t, then I’ll sit on him until he does. Okay?” 

Diggle threw up his hands. “Okay. Whatever.” He said, shrugging, as he climbed into the backseat next to Oliver. 

Kara rolled her eyes. “Don’t think I don’t know that you know just what he’s been up to, Mr. John Diggle…” She muttered to herself as she took the driver’s seat and sent the car to join the local traffic. 

The only people Oliver Queen seemed to confide in were Felicity Smoak and John Diggle: they were always around when he was and tended to be unavailable when he wasn’t. She could also state with confidence that, during her interactions with them all, they had been the only people towards whom he had ever indicated trust. 

However, while he might not trust her in the same way he trusted them, the fact was that she and Oliver needed to come to some kind of understanding. 

She drove the car to the Queen mansion, where Diggle indicated that a staff member would take it to the mansion’s garage. (Or was that garages plural? She had no idea.) Between the two of them they watched as Oliver made his way through the mansion and away from his staff. They accompanied him as he climbed the stairs to his suite. 

Once there, Oliver placed a hand against the wall, apparently to hold himself up. 

“Look, Kara…” He began, but Kara cut him off. 

“Nope. Not this time, mister.” 

“I’m going to make sure you’re all right. I’m also not going to leave until we talk about some things. Now is probably not the best time for that, but I just KNOW that if I leave you alone you’ll disappear on me again and it just won’t happen, so I’m going to wait. Right here.” She stated in a firm tone. 

Oliver’s response was a simple shrug. His lack of response only served to further emphasize just how much he needed the rest. 

She watched as Diggle grasped his arm and, despite his protests, helped him inside and onto his bed. After removing his shoes, Kara turned to ask him if he needed anything else, when he took her hand. 

“I thought you were going to stay here.” He said teasingly. She rolled her eyes. 

“All right, I didn’t mean right here, Romeo. I figured I’d find some room somewhere and crash…” Her words trailed off as she realized that he had fallen asleep while holding her hand. When she tried to pull her hand away, his hand only tightened around hers. 

Diggle threw her an amused look. “How about I get you a chair? One of us should probably keep an eye on him. If you want, you can wake me up later and I’ll spell you.” 

Rolling her eyes, Kara opted not to share the many sarcastic responses she could have provided and remained silent as he brought her the promised chair. Then she sat quietly as Diggle left, eventually managing to reclaim her hand from Oliver’s grasp. 

Night fell outside the room. There seemed to be lights somewhere on the grounds outside, but they didn’t really penetrate into the room, despite the open window and the gentle breeze that tried to drive away the slight touch of spring humidity. 

Kara sat quietly and watched both Oliver and the room for some time as darkness and quiet gathered. Eventually, she heard him move, and he awoke. 

“You’re still here?” He asked softly, sighting her through the gloom of the surrounding night. 

“Yeah I am. I did have my own reasons for staying, but we can talk about it later.” She whispered back. “John thought we should keep an eye on you, he’ll be by later.” 

Oliver nodded and sat up. Kara quickly moved forward, thinking to keep him from moving or, if he had to get up for other reasons, ensure that he didn’t trip on his way to the bathroom and kill himself. 

He held up a hand, smiling, “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.” He paused, “You know, I’ve been thinking. I’ve come to realize that I should… apologize for leaving you in the lurch so often with the company. I’m sorry I implied you had to deal with that -John pointed out the other day that that wasn’t really fair of me, and he’s right.” 

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I just have trouble trusting people, and you’re actually one of the few people I do trust. That’s why I left it up to you, but I realize now that what I did to you wasn’t entirely fair.” 

Kara shrugged, then spoke, “Yeah, I’ll admit it was hard. I figured it out though. And it’s not like you weren’t a decent CEO and boss when you were around. But… maybe we can talk about why you keep disappearing on me sometime, or we could at least plan for what to do when that happens. You know, *together*. So I have a little more direction.” As she spoke, she moved to sit next to him on the bed. 

Oliver nodded, “All right. That’s fair. I can do that.” He smiled and took her hand. 

Then he kissed her, and Kara froze in shock. 

She had honestly not even let herself consider the idea of something like this -particularly since he was her boss. Then she found herself kissing him back. 

She knew this was a terrible idea, yet somehow… Somehow she couldn’t pull away. Somehow, the fact that was foremost in her mind was that she found him much too interesting and attractive for her peace of mind. 

_…Because there’s a lot I still don’t know about him,_ she reminded herself firmly as their kiss ended. 

Pulling back, he leaned his forehead against hers as he spoke. “I should apologize for that too, I suppose. I’ll admit I don’t want to.” 

Kara smiled and he winced. “I’ll admit I’m not thinking straight right now. God, given what’s happened to you recently, I just wouldn’t want you to think that I was implying…”

She burst out laughing at that and smacked his arm. “For the record, I know you’re no Mr. Benjamin Williams. Something’s going on with you, I think, and it’s something you don’t want to or can’t tell me about, but you’re a good man. For one thing, no one could care about their employees the way you do and be totally evil.” 

She was still smiling as he turned away from her. Kara took note of his expression, which was somehow full of an immense sadness. He shook his head while visibly closing himself off from her. 

“Don’t believe everything you hear.” 

Her eyes snapped wide with shock at his statement. As he moved to turn away from her, she placed a hand on his arm. 

“I think you just might be better than you think,” she said as she placed a hand on his face. 

He didn’t respond and she sighed, realizing she had all the answers she was going to get for now. Standing, she left to get Diggle, leaving him to his demons. 

* * *

A few days later, it was as if nothing had happened between them. Everything was business as usual, which was fine with Oliver. Kara, on the other hand, looked about ready to scream. 

_It’s for the best,_ Oliver reminded himself firmly as the day progressed. 

The facts, unfortunately, hadn’t changed. There was too much going on in his life -things that were just too heavy to ask someone to share with him. He didn’t even know if he’d ever be ‘normal’ enough for that to be a possibility, and Kara deserved better. Better than him. 

_There’s also the fact that we work together and that I’m her boss,_ he thought again, before putting such thoughts firmly to the side to focus on business. 

As he had promised, he had taken steps to set up a plan of action for the company, in preparation for the frequent instances where he wouldn’t be there in person. This had involved enlarging the strategic planning that he had already set up for the company, so as to include contingencies for extended periods of time when he was unavailable. While the person who would carry out the largest portion of those plans and contingencies was Kara, they had also involved many other people in the organization and documents had had to be drawn up. In the end though, he had provided everyone with clear directions on what actions to carry out in his absence. 

He could admit that this was something he should have thought of before, rather than leave Kara and the rest of the company in the lurch. The only defense he could offer was that he was still new at this and that it truly hadn’t occurred to him. 

(He also had to admit that one of the rare instances in which he was happy to use the power that came with his last name and position had been when it came to impressing on everyone, aside from Kara, that he simply wasn’t going to discuss the *why* of his absences.) 

Oliver concluded his daily schedule of meetings, reviews, and dealing with other minutiae of running one of the country’s largest corporations. Shutting down his laptop, he got ready to leave the office. As he stepped outside into Kara’s office however, he noted that she was sitting at her desk and seemed to be waiting for him. That impression was confirmed when she shut down whatever she had been working on and stood. 

“Is everything all right?” He asked. 

She nodded, “Fine. Everything’s fine. I did want to talk to you, though.” 

He sighed. Then, figuring he couldn’t avoid speaking with her (he had managed to it so far, but he figured his lucky streak had to end sometime), he set aside his briefcase and sat in one of the chairs in front of her desk. “Okay. What’s going on?” 

Kara shrugged, “Look, I don’t… I don’t want to intrude. You’ve obviously got things you want to keep to yourself and that’s certainly your prerogative. But I…” She paused, gesturing with her hands, “I’m just worried about you.” 

He cut her off, “I’m fine.” 

“Are you?” 

“Yes. Is that all you wanted to ask me?” 

“No!” She shouted the last in her frustration, then obviously tried to dial it back, taking a moment to calm herself. 

She sighed, “What I’m trying to say is that you were injured the other day. Someone did that to you. You don’t want to talk about it. That’s okay, I can accept that. I guess I’m just worried…”

“About what?” 

“Honestly, I’m wondering whether something could happen to you. Like I said, you don’t want to talk about it, but the fact is that whatever you’re doing affects me too. Actually, it affects everyone here. You’ve taken steps to spell out what should happen when you’re not available, but what if it’s more than that? What happens to all of us if someday you don’t come back?” 

Oliver sat back, somewhat at a loss for words. Eventually, he shrugged and replied, “I hadn’t thought about that either, but it’s a good point. I do need to make plans for my death, because it could happen.” He spoke calmly, quietly. 

Kara shook her head, obviously in shock. “I can’t believe you’re just that calm about dying.” 

He smiled, “It happens to everyone, you know. Between you and me, yes, it could happen a little sooner in my case, but you’re right. I’ll make arrangements.” 

Somehow, that statement really seemed to bother her. That wasn’t his problem though. 

Standing, he picked up his briefcase and turned to leave. 

Kara moved to intercept him, “There’s just one last thing,” she said. 

“What is it?” He said. She didn’t immediately reply. She seemed nervous, somehow. 

Somehow, without meaning to, he noticed again just how lovely she was. Putting that thought firmly aside, he brought his mind back to business. When she didn’t speak, he again moved to leave. 

“Would you like to go out sometime? On a date, I mean?” She blurted out. 

All right, he really hadn’t been expecting that one. He turned back to her. “Did you just ask me out?” 

She smiled, “Who says only guys can ask? You don’t have to say yes, by the way. I just thought… Well, you know…” She cut herself off, looking a bit flustered. 

“Okay.” He heard himself say. 

_Okay? What the hell happened to this being a bad idea, Oliver?_ He asked himself. 

He realized what the answer to that question was though, when she smiled at him again. 

Somehow, that smile at that moment looked to him like a sliver of light, illuminating his own personal darkness. Somehow, that sweet smile meant that his life was just a little less bleak and so, despite this whole thing being a terrible idea, he just couldn’t stay away. 

“Okay then.” She said to him as he nodded and he quickly excused himself and left her office. 

* * *

Kara wasn’t quite sure why she had done it or even whether it was a good idea, but she had taken the huge step of asking Oliver on a date. 

To begin with, he had baggage. She had no idea whether he was ready for a relationship. Of course a date wasn’t a marriage proposal, but it certainly did have the potential to complicate things for both of them. 

Yet for some reason she didn’t entirely yet understand, she had wanted to do it. She didn’t want to examine that too closely, partly because that would have involved considering what she was doing. All she knew, all she was letting herself think about at this point, was that she liked him and that she was attracted to him. And that despite the potential for this to complicate both their lives, she couldn’t stay away. 

As it happened, their single date took place a few days after she had asked him out and nothing happened the way she had thought it would. 

Oliver picked her up in a chauffeured car, sans bodyguard: while Kara had initially suggested that they keep things simple and just meet somewhere he had wanted to go all out and surprise her. In the end he had taken her to a little Italian restaurant in a relatively modest part of the city, overlooking the river. 

They had spent a very pleasant time at dinner, their discussion having little to do with work. Oliver told her a bit about his childhood, including many pranks played both with and on his sister. He told her about his best friend, Tommy Merlyn, and how much he regretted that they weren’t close anymore. Kara couldn’t help but notice, however, that there was a big part of his life which he didn’t talk about. 

Her own life presented yet another obstacle. She discussed growing up with her sister and foster parents but had to skirt the issue of where they were living now, as she had no idea exactly where *here* was. She also had to avoid discussing her early childhood on Krypton and remained vague on where she was born. 

For this reason, despite having had a nice time, she was left feeling both unhappy and dissatisfied. 

Oliver’s phone rang as they walked out of the restaurant. “Hello?” He said, as he took the call. 

As she waited, Kara purposely tuned out the conversation in order to respect his privacy. As she watched he soon began frowning and, after a brief conversation, ended the call. 

“I’m really sorry, but I have to go.” He said, his mind obviously on other things. 

To Kara, this wasn’t an entirely unexpected event and she nodded as he hurried away, leaving the car behind. 

Seeing as it was a truly beautiful evening, she refused the chauffeur’s offer of having the car take her home and decided to walk along the riverside. 

* * *

The call Oliver had received had been from Felicity: it seemed she had a lead on one of the city’s recent disappearances. 

The local rumor mill as well as social and mainstream media were abuzz with speculation regarding a recent upturn in disappearances in the city. The authorities, on the other hand, had yet to address the problem. Therefore, despite his interest in his crossing more names off his list, Oliver had felt that he had to do what he could. Especially given the fact that most of the missing seemed to be the kind of people who didn’t usually have a voice, in anything. 

Taking a shortcut, he managed to make it to Verdant in a few short minutes, where he quickly changed into the Hood outfit. 

“What’ve you got?” He asked as he walked up to Felicity, watching as she continued to work her magic on her bank of computers. 

“Suspicious bank transactions.” She replied without looking up. 

“…And this relates to people going missing how?” He prompted her. 

“Well, that doesn’t. Not directly anyways. However, this does.” She said as she brought some information up on one of her screens. “The last disappearance was Oscar Ramirez, who disappeared not far from here. And guess who was in the area at the time, at least according to my new and possibly not totally ethical experimental facial recognition program?” 

“Who?” 

She pressed a button and one of her screens began displaying footage of a white-haired woman with Asian features, somewhere near the river. 

“China White.” 

Felicity nodded. “This is footage from… well, never mind. I hacked into the security systems of a building near where Ramirez disappeared and I found this. And according to the timestamp on the footage…”

Oliver leaned over and read the figures. “This places her near Ramirez’s last known location around the time he disappeared.” He said as he turned to look at Felicity, who nodded. 

“Based on some other footage from around the area, I was able to determine that she spends quite a bit of time in or near certain warehouses that are owned by a company called Infinity Dynamics. Also, based on some… interesting bank transactions I was able to get a look at through yet some more judicious hacking, and while I’m so not an accountant, it’s pretty obvious there are some shady deals going on. And luckily as well, I do have a pretty good forensic accounting program which actually skims from some pretty good databases to figure whatever I can’t once I’ve managed to get access...” 

Oliver gave her a look. 

“All right fine, I’m babbling a bit. The point is that I identified some really *interesting* transactions which are suggestive of money laundering, as well as some other shady dealings, all tied to that company. That also sounds right up her alley and probably explains what she was doing there. At the very least, she may have some idea of what happened.” 

Oliver nodded, “Good work. I’ll go see about having a chat with her now.” 

Flipping the hood up over his face, he picked up his bow and quiver and was on his way. 

* * *

As it turned out, China White didn’t know what had happened to Ramirez. 

_That’s what she claims anyway,_ Oliver thought to himself as he left Infinity Dynamics’ warehouse roughly half an hour later, having been lucky enough to find her in the establishment in question. 

As usual, she had objected rather strenuously and physically to his looking into her affairs. However, while he certainly didn’t trust her, he felt she was telling the truth. He hadn’t missed the brief flicker of confusion in her expression when he had called out his questions regarding Ramirez’s disappearance. 

_So what now?_ He thought as he made his way back to Verdant. 

He set out at a run across a warehouse roof, which lay partly under one of the city’s bridges over the river. As he did so he heard the screech of tires on asphalt, accompanied by screams, coming from the bridge up above. 

With dawning horror, he realized that someone seemed to be falling from the bridge. Increasing the speed of his run, he tried to think of a way to help, despite knowing he would be too late. 

Then, the impossible happened. Somehow, a person rose up and *caught* the figure tumbling down from the bridge. 

Somehow, defying belief, the two figures came to a gentle landing a mere one hundred meters away. Oliver noted the young woman -teenager really- who had just been snatched from the jaws of death. She seemed stunned, yet managed to turn to thank her savior, gasping out an apology and something about a ‘dare’ from a friend and having climbed up onto the bridge’s railing. 

That was when Oliver’s eyes turned to the girl’s savior and he gasped in shock as Kara waved away the girl’s thanks. 

Hearing his gasp, she turned towards him and her eyes widened in recognition. Then she was somehow gone. 

_Well, this certainly changes things,_ he thought to himself with a certain mordant wit. 

END PART 2


	3. Part 3

For the purposes of this story I’m assuming that the Earth of the ‘Arrow’ TV show has comic books, although I’m also assuming they’ve never heard of Superman or Supergirl. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, LOL. 

As a note, I’ll openly admit that I truly don’t care for the Supergirl outfit (it always seemed a bit sexist, particularly given the teeny tiny mini skirt), which is why Kara isn’t wearing it in this story. However I will openly admit that this is entirely my opinion and YMMV. 

Italics indicate characters’ thoughts. 

* * *

Oliver Queen was hurt and angry. 

It had been a few days since Oliver had seen Kara Danvers do the impossible and the only word he could come up with to describe how he felt was: anger. 

He was angry for finding out that there was so much he hadn’t known about her. He was angry that she had kept this (whatever this was) from him. 

Most of all, he was angry at himself for trusting her. 

He knew that what he felt wasn’t reasonable and that it wasn’t fair, particularly given his own secrets. He felt it anyway: he simply couldn’t ignore the fact that she had lied to him. He kept going through what had happened, reliving it over and over in his head.

Today was the first day he had been back in the office since that night. The past few days had been spent pursuing more names on his list. One particularly egregious example had been William Lefebvre, who had apparently gotten away with murdering a woman who had attempted to protest the environmental damage he was causing to local ecosystems when he greenlit his company’s (illegal) dumping of toxic waste into a nearby lake. 

While Oliver admitted that the timing of his efforts had certainly been convenient and had given him some much needed breathing room, he still hadn’t managed to process what he had seen. 

To be honest, he didn’t know what to think. How was it possible for her to have done what she did? Yet he could not deny what he had seen with own eyes. 

He shook his head as he walked into his Queen Industries office, determined to confront her about this, and noted that she hadn’t yet arrived. 

Leaving his office door open he sat at his desk and began to plow through the many messages, documents, and other assorted company minutiae which had accumulated during his latest absence. He heard her arrive a few minutes later and looked up as she walked into his office. 

_She looks nervous,_ he thought to himself as she cleared her throat and began to speak. 

“Can we talk, later?” She asked. 

Oliver nodded, “Let’s talk at lunch, I’ll be free then.” 

Kara nodded in reply and returned to her work. 

As she did so, Oliver reminded himself yet again that he had his own equal share of secrets, many of which he hadn’t shared with her. It didn’t change his feelings of betrayal and anger, however, and he quietly reminded himself that he was being an ass. Again.

The morning was filled with several meetings: the lengthiest dealt with the internal audit of QI’s renewable energy division. The audit had focused primarily on its finances, a need identified by both Kara and QI’s accountants. 

He returned to his office, followed by Kara, who had also been present at the meeting. After stepping into his office to drop off some paperwork, he met her at her desk. “Shall we?” He asked quietly, and she nodded. 

They walked over to a small café a few blocks from the QI building, trailed by Diggle, who opted to wait for them outside as Oliver chose a quiet table in the back where it would be possible to talk without being overheard. 

“Do you want to tell me what that was, the other day?” He finally asked, after the waiter had left with their orders. 

She frowned and looked down at her hands, fidgeting. “I… guess I don’t know where to start. Or to explain.” 

Oliver sat back in his chair. “Please, just tell me the truth.” 

She sighed. “I don’t know, Oliver. I know we need to talk about this but… Is it really fair of you to want me to come clean, if you aren’t planning to do the same?” 

While Oliver knew she had a point, he couldn’t change the fact that he was struggling with the recent revelations about her, which meant that part of him wasn’t in the mood to come clean about anything. On the other hand, she had seen him while dressed as his other persona, and had recognized him, so she obviously knew a big part of his secret already. 

“You first.” He ground out. _All right,_ he admitted to himself, _being a reasonable adult can be really annoying sometimes when I want to be the exact opposite, damn it._

She threw up her hands. “All right, fine. I’m an alien from outer space and I came through a portal or something to wind up in Star City a few months ago. I also eat people for breakfast and lunch, but I really prefer to be a vegetarian at dinnertime.” 

“What?” 

She pointed a finger at him. “All right, I made up that last part, and I’ll admit I kind of threw the rest at you, but you’re not making this easy. Also, you were being kind of a jerk just now.” 

Oliver shook his head, trying to make sense of what she was saying. “Um, could you repeat that? A bit slower this time? And maybe add some explanation of what you just said?” He said, reminding himself to remain calm. 

Kara was silent for a moment. When she spoke, it was quieter and more slowly, “I was born on a planet far away from here. It was called Krypton…” 

* * *

It was late afternoon and the sun was shining brightly over Star City, illuminating the streets and leaf-covered trees of its various parks. Birds sang with joy and the air was redolent with the smells of spring. 

In the busy offices of the City Necessary Resources Initiative or CNRI, Laurel Lance was greeting a new client, who had recently been referred to them by the local community health center. 

Matthew Davis was a tall slender man with short hair. His struggle to comprehend what had happened to him was written in his haunted expression and careful gestures. Shaking his hand, Laurel took her seat and asked him to begin by relating the events leading up to and surrounding the disappearance of his wife. 

He took a deep breath. “She disappeared six months ago. I just came home one day and she should have been there, but she wasn’t.” He continued detailing the circumstances surrounding her disappearance. 

“…Ann had her problems, but she wouldn’t have just left.” He said, finally, after completing his account. 

“What problems?” Laurel asked. 

“She was diagnosed with depression a year ago, and she still struggled with it. I mean, one of the problems was that we just couldn’t afford for her to take the medication she was prescribed for longer than a few weeks. My insurance just wouldn’t pay for it, or for the care of a psychologist or psychiatrist.” Laurel nodded. 

“So she wasn’t doing so well. I tried- the whole family tried to help, but there was a limit to what we could do. But she was trying too: she was making herself get up in the mornings, she’d even gotten a new job. I won’t lie to you -she was struggling. It was hard, and there were definitely times she couldn’t get out of bed, but she wasn’t giving up.” 

He paused for a moment, tears in his eyes, as Laurel gave him a moment to collect himself. 

“Did you contact the police?” She finally asked. 

He nodded. “They asked me some questions, said they’d opened a case file.” He shrugged. “It didn’t go anywhere. Two weeks ago I asked if there had been any progress and they told me that they’d concluded she’d left ‘of her own accord’ and they were closing her case.” 

Laurel nodded. “One thing I have to ask you is this: what help do you want to get from us? What are you hoping we can do for you?” 

He thought about her question for a few moments, then said, “I want the police to reopen the case. I don’t know how to get them to do that and I also don’t have anyone to turn to. So if there’s any help you can provide I’d be really grateful.” 

She nodded. “There are several things you could do to attempt to get the case reopened. In order to advise you, there are a few more things I’m going to need to know…”

* * *

By the time Laurel left the office, night had fallen over the city and the walk to her car was an exercise in night vision. Indeed, despite repeated official denials, the fact was that street lamps were in general not repaired in The Glades as they were in wealthier neighborhoods. 

_Just like a lot of other things vary according to neighborhood and the color of a person’s skin in this place,_ Laurel thought to herself as she fished out her car keys, then set her briefcase on the back seat. 

Sliding in behind the wheel, she winced as she noted the time displayed by the car’s electronics. 

_I’m sorry Dad,_ she thought as she set the car in motion: she was late for dinner with her father. It was probably best just to be on her way though, as he would wait for her to show up. 

They had agreed to meet at a small restaurant across town -thankfully traffic was light and she quickly reached her destination. 

“I’m so sorry Dad, I just lost track of time…” She said as she slid into her seat across from Detective Quentin Lance. 

He shrugged. “I figured. How was your day?” 

“Okay… There’s something I wanted to ask you about though.” 

He nodded, used to discussing serious topics with her, both about work and other issues. 

“What’s on your mind?” He asked. 

“I need to ask you about some cases I’ve been working on, with the understanding that I’m asking you this in order to advocate for my clients, and because I trust you to both keep this between us and to do the right thing.” 

He stopped eating and sat back in his chair. “That sounds pretty serious. And official.” 

She shook her head. “It’s not official. Officially, I’m just having dinner with my father.” 

“And unofficially?” 

“Unofficially… I need to ask you what the police think about the fact that, as far as I can determine, there’ve been a significant increase in the number of disappearances in this city.” 

She leaned forward to look her father in the eye. “I have a *lot* of desperate people coming to me for help, because they feel the police aren’t doing what they should be.” She cut him off as he was about to speak, “I know that you, personally, are doing your best. But I also need to ask if you know anything about what’s been going on and if there’s anything you can tell me. And whether there’s anything you can do to help.” 

Quentin drummed his fingers on the table, apparently considering how to reply. Then he sighed. “What the heck. The truth is that yes, there have been a lot of disappearances. Probably more than you know about, because I really don’t think every one of these people had someone who could do something like go to CNRI on their behalf to advocate for their loved one. Also, I’ve fielded a few calls from detectives in other parts of the country with similar stories in their neck of the woods. I honestly have no idea what’s going on.” 

“Honestly, I’ve asked for this to be investigated. I’ve pleaded. Heck, I even begged. I think the mayor and the rich people in this town don’t want to know that there’s a problem, honestly. Some may not believe that there’s a problem, because it is true that a lot of the people who disappeared were transients or were otherwise people whose disappearances could have some simple alternative explanation. Most of them probably just don’t care because it doesn’t affect them. The point is, though, that our department has been told to move on.” 

“What are you saying?” Laurel asked. 

He sighed. “I’m not saying we’re giving up. But it’s gonna be harder to investigate this with the brass pushing us to focus on other things.” 

She nodded. “What do you think is going on? What’s happening to these people?” 

He shook his head. “Honestly, right now we have no idea. We can’t even prove the cases are connected. But my gut… is telling me something is definitely going on.” 

Laurel smiled at that. “Honestly, given who you are and all your experience, I’d take your hunches over most people’s certainties. I’m going to go visit the DA tomorrow, to see if I can’t drum up some interest in some of these cases there.” 

Quentin nodded in reply. “I’ll let you know if I find anything that can help you, but I’m not that optimistic about it.” 

“Okay.” She replied. Then, noting the worry lines between his eyes, she decided to change the subject to something less serious. 

“So… What do you think about those rumors about a flying girl that’ve been going around the city?” 

Quentin burst out laughing. 

* * *

Kara had detailed her entire story during her lunch with Oliver. Then, she had reminded him that he had some truths of his own to share. 

Oliver agreed. However, rather than share these with her at the lunch table, Oliver had placed a call to Felicity. Catching up with John outside the restaurant, he had then taken her to the basement of Verdant (one of many items of QI property she had never had the chance to visit) and introduced (or reintroduced) her to his ‘partners in crime’. He had then revealed the details of his other ‘work’. Given their involvement with Oliver, Kara had somewhat reluctantly agreed to share her story with them. Both Felicity and Diggle had been shocked by the revelation of Kara’s secrets, but had taken the news much better than Oliver had. While they had obviously not wanted to make her uncomfortable and had avoided asking too many questions, Felicity had been particularly fascinated by her trip from one Earth to another and had begun to speculate about how such a thing could be possible. 

Kara couldn’t help but notice that Oliver was much less enthusiastic about the whole thing. He had in fact abruptly left, stating that he had meetings he had to attend back at work. 

A few days later, she still hadn’t seen him. 

“Don’t worry about it. He’ll come around.” Felicity told her, after replying to Kara’s query regarding Oliver’s whereabouts with a shrug. 

“Yeah, he’s got trouble trusting people. It’s why he acts like an ass sometimes, especially when something throws him for a loop.” Diggle added. “He’ll come around.” 

Felicity stared at Kara, seemingly uneasy. “So… I’ve sort of been meaning to ask…” She began. 

“What?” Kara asked as Felicity began to wave her hands and Diggle began to look more and more amused. “What is it?” 

“…Oliver said you flew.” Felicity finally said, the words coming out in a rush. 

Somewhat reluctantly, Kara nodded. Both Felicity and Diggle had taken the news about her rather well. Over the past few days she had spent quite a bit of time with the both of them and she had deeply appreciated the fact that they had thus far avoided asking her any further questions. On the other hand, while they had both received the revelations about her with calm, she couldn’t help but wonder what effect this would have on their friendship. 

She did however understand that Felicity was likely bursting with curiosity -and the truth was that it did not feel malicious in the least. 

“So can you do anything else?” Felicity asked, her attention glued to Kara. “I mean, do you have superpowers?” 

Kara started laughing. “Yeah, I can do a few other things. I can… well, I’m kind of indestructible. And I’m, um, really strong. And a few other things.” 

As Felicity asked several more questions and Kara provided more brief answers she considered the fact that, while being questioned like this might have been off-putting in other circumstances, somehow Felicity’s curiosity never reached the point of being belittling or dehumanizing. Somehow, Felicity never had any trouble remembering that Kara was a person, which was not what Kara would have expected from most people. John seemed to be rather desperately trying to retain a dignified expression despite wanting to burst out laughing. Somehow, despite his amusement at Felicity’s questions and despite his own probable curiosity on the topic, Kara knew him well enough to know that he would not want her to be uncomfortable and would therefore probably never ask any questions of his own. 

After replying to Felicity’s questions, she spoke of her foster parents’ concerns with regards to her using her powers. 

“They were afraid someone would find out what I was and take me away, so I grew up trying to fit in while holding a fundamental part of myself back.” She stated. 

“The first time I ever used my powers as an adult was right before I wound up here, like I said. I have to admit that everything that’s happened scared me. I mean, of course I don’t regret saving that plane full of people. I guess I’m just… scared.” 

Felicity nodded. “I can see that. It’s a pretty big decision to have to make -to decide whether to put yourself out there.” 

“Yes. On the other hand, though…”

“What do you mean?” Felicity asked when Kara didn’t complete her sentence. 

“The truth is that I don’t regret what I did. I’ll admit I’m still struggling with the consequences -how did that even happen? How did I get here? But honestly, if I had to do it again… I’d do the exact same thing. The truth is, once I saved all those people, I couldn’t not do it again. I felt the same way when that girl fell off that bridge. I guess… ignoring that part of me would’ve felt as if I was ripping off my right arm.” Kara said. 

“I guess you have your answer then.” Felicity said, as Diggle nodded. 

“I guess I do.” Kara replied, then sighed, “I’m just sorry I lied to you both and to Oliver. I just didn’t know what else to do.” 

Both Diggle and Felicity smiled. “Don’t worry about it.” Diggle said as Felicity nodded in agreement, “You had a pretty damn good reason. But now that you know… that means that now you know that we can help.” 

“I hope this means you’ll let us. Help you, I mean.” Felicity added. 

Kara nodded, smiling. “Okay.” 

The truth was that while she might not have known everything about her new friends prior to a few days ago, she did know what kind of people they were deep down. They were the kind of people who could be counted on to do the right thing, no matter what. 

The rarest and best kind. 

* * *

Which was how, a few hours later, Kara found herself modeling crime fighting outfits and debating whether or not the basement of Verdant qualified as a ‘lair’. 

“We don’t use that word…” Felicity was saying as Kara stood before her in a black outfit which resembled both Oliver’s green ‘Hood’ getup, as well as to Diggle’s dark colored outfit for similar ‘ventures’. 

“Why not? It’s a lair. Own it.” 

Felicity was still shaking her head. “Nope. It’s also not a hideout, hideaway, nest, concealment, covert, den, hermitage, or other similar term. Nuh-uh.” 

Kara gaped at her. 

“All right, so I was looking for a good word for it recently, and I wasn’t sure what to use.” Felicity said, as Kara snickered. “Moving on though, can you move around in that thing?” 

Kara thought about it and nodded. “It’s not perfect, but I guess it’ll work for now. I wish I could wear my family’s crest, but…”

Felicity paused. “You have a family crest?”, she asked, and shook her head when Kara nodded. “Wow. That is so cool.” 

“Okay. What do you think -time to try it out in the world?” 

“Let’s do it.” 

Which was how Kara came to carry out her first planned actions as Star City’s newest hero: by the end of the afternoon she had put out a fire in a warehouse, stopped two armed robberies, and saved a cat stuck in a tree. 

“So how did it feel?” Diggle asked her as she flew back into Verdant’s basement. 

“Really good, actually.” Kara said, and smiled. “It’s really nice to just be myself, you know? Not to have to pretend.” 

Diggle nodded. “Welcome to the world, Kara Zor-El.” He said. 

* * *

The past few months had ripped Matthew Davis’ soul apart. 

His wife Ann had been missing for over six months. In that time, he’d had to explain to their two young daughters why their mother wasn’t around to rock them to sleep, wake them up in the morning, take them in her arms and comfort them. He’d had to find the words to explain to them, somehow, that it was just the three of them for now. 

_For how long?_

The police didn’t seem to care and had done very little to find her. He had tried everything he could think of, including asking help from the lawyers at CNRI, but so far nothing had changed. 

For himself, he couldn’t forget her. He remembered her smile, and how it always lit up everything and everyone around her. That sweet, sweet smile was the thing that first drew him to her. That warmth and her love were a fundamental part of what had kept their family together through the hard times that had come later. Somehow despite her illness she had never given up, had never accepted that things wouldn’t work out. Somehow, when she was around, he had started believing it too. 

He had to find her. For all four of them, so that they could put their family back together. 

This was why he found himself in The Glades, lurking outside a run-down apartment building that was home to various squatters, pimps, and drug dealers. 

He was here out of pure desperation: while they lived in a relatively good neighborhood, one of their neighbors had a drug problem. (Matthew, like many in their neighborhood, had had their suspicions about this, given some of the man's past behavior and rotating cast of visitors.) The point however was that while attempting to carry out his own investigation of Ann's disappearance, Matthew had questioned several of his neighbors. This man had reluctantly admitted that an individual had 'come to visit' him around the time of Ann’s disappearance and had shown quite a bit of interest in the pretty neighbor across the way. After considerable pleading and even more prodding, the man had finally provided the information that led Matthew to this place. 

The only positive thing which could have been said of the old building before him was that it was still standing. Aside from being covered in graffiti and other dubious 'decoration', many of which had been left there by animal rather than human activity, its brick facade was missing both mortar and quite a few bricks. As he entered the building, Matthew discovered that the elevator was broken, which he figured was most likely a long-standing situation. Upon arriving on the fourth floor, he noticed that many doors were permanently ajar -rusted and broken hinges lay scattered over the floor. 

Number 123, as it turned out, had one of the few functioning doors and locks. Matthew knocked and was rewarded with the sound of shuffling feet, followed by the door being unlocked. A surly looking bloodshot face peered out of a gloomy interior. 

“What do you want?” The man asked. Matthew nodded to himself: the man matched the description his neighbor had provided. 

“I'm a friend of Ray's?” He said, tentative. “Ray Johnson? He recommended you -he said you sold stuff...” 

The man looked him up and down. “If you can pay I do. Come in, though.” He said, looking around outside before shutting the door behind Matthew. Turning around, he asked, “What are you looking for?” 

Now that he was inside the door, Matthew began laying out why he was here. “Well, honestly, I'm not here for that. I'm just looking for a little bit of information -I just want to ask you about a few months ago. You see, you were in the neighborhood around the time my wife disappeared...?” 

The man had pulled back. “What the hell, man? You a cop? You looking to bust me?” The man advanced menacingly. 

Matthew threw up his hands, hoping to placate the other man. “No! I'm not a cop -I'm not anybody. It's just that you were in my neighborhood around the time my wife went missing and...” 

The other man wrapped his hands in Matthew's jacket and crowded him into the closed door. “Get the fuck out of here.” 

Matthew shook his head, “Look, I'm not trying to get you in trouble. I just wanted to ask you...” The other man manhandled him to the side and opened the door, then roughly pushed him outside. 

“Don't come back here. If I find you here again, I'll make you regret it, understand?” 

Matthew stood looking at the door in shock as it slammed in his face. 

He stared at the closed door for a moment, before deciding to leave. There was nothing more to be gained here. 

_Why couldn't he just listen to me?_ He wondered as he walked back down the stairs and out of the building. _God, now I'll never know whether he saw something or knew anything..._

He began to walk down the street, heading away from The Glades. He was deep in thought, wondering whether he could have handled the confrontation differently. 

The streets were dark and empty -everyone knew The Glades was not a good place to be walking the streets alone at night. Matthew however had not had any other options but to come here when he could and The Glades was not much safer during the day. 

After walking a few blocks, he realized that he was being followed. Glancing back, he made out three dark silhouettes. 

_Great._ He thought to himself, as he tried to pick up the pace, only to see those following him do the same. He ran. 

As he did so he turned various corners and zigged and zagged, trying to lose his pursuers, to no avail. After a few minutes, he was struck from behind and tripped. 

He fell, and they were on him. 

They made no demands as they bound and gagged him, dragging him to his feet. Strangely, none of them spoke as they dragged him down the street and into a dark alley. Matthew struggled and yelled through the gag but failed to capture their attention. As they made their way to yet another decrepit building he grabbed hold of the building’s façade, then the door, in a desperate attempt to avoid being dragged inside. 

Suddenly he was free of his captors yet still bound, as sounds of fighting drifted over to him. Lying on the ground, he tested his bonds, somehow managing only to tangle them further. 

He gasped as a blast of wind hit him and he realized that he was airborne. His strange flight lasted only moments. Once he was back on solid ground, he took a few moments to put together a few slightly incoherent facts. 

He was on the ground. He was, apparently, outside The Glades. Because he had just flown. Through the air. 

In front of him stood what appeared to be a woman, wearing a mask, hood, and dark clothing. 

_What the...?_ He thought to himself. 

“I'm sorry if I scared you. I just thought it was probably a good idea to get you away from those people.” Despite his confusion, he noted the voice -definitely female. 

He nodded, then asked, “Thanks, but... What the hell... What was that?” He blurted. 

She laughed. “I had to fly you away from them -I couldn’t just leave you there since they could have had accomplices. Speaking of which…” She reached over and ripped away the ropes binding his wrists and ankles. 

_Those were some strong ropes and she just ripped them to shreds like they were tissue paper,_ he noted in shock. 

He started backing away from her. 

She shook her head. “I promise I’m not here to hurt you. I have to ask though: did you know who those men were or why they were after you?” 

He shook his head. “No. No clue. They just yanked me off the street.”

“Are you sure? They seemed pretty determined.” 

He sighed. “Look, I came to The Glades to try to find some drug dealer guy, not because I wanted what he was selling, but because someone told me he might have information about… about the disappearance of my wife six months ago. He didn’t want to talk to me, so I left. Then I ran into those guys. That’s the whole story.” 

Kara nodded. “I believe you. Are you going to be okay to get home now?” 

Matthew nodded. 

“All right.” She said, and he watched as she jumped up and flew away. 

* * *

As she flew back to where she had left the three kidnappers, Kara considered the current situation. 

John and Felicity had told her that Oliver had been (and still was) looking into the recent spate of disappearances in Star City. From what Kara had seen, something was definitely up: she had stopped six abductions in The Glades in the past five days. From what Felicity had been able to determine based on (hacked) police files, there had definitely been a recent upsurge in disappearances in Star City and many of these disappearances had taken place in and around The Glades, although a few which also seemed to fit the pattern had taken place in other neighborhoods. 

The question was who was doing this, and why? 

When she had discussed it with Felicity and Diggle, they had mentioned that almost all of these unsolved disappearances had involved the poorer segments of the population, as well as those who would be less likely to have someone to advocate for them. 

When she arrived she noticed that two of the kidnappers, a man and a woman, had gone, leaving their cohort behind. The reason was immediately apparent to Kara as she landed next to the man, as he had a bloody head wound and appeared to be unconscious. 

She reached out a hand to touch him, wanting to determine whether he was indeed unconscious. At the same moment his eyes opened and he jumped to his feet. 

He seemed to be in poor shape, swaying visibly on his feet, yet he began backing up when Kara attempted to step up to assist him. 

“Stay away!” He yelled, visibly agitated. 

“I’m not going to hurt you.” Kara said, trying to make her voice sound as reassuring as possible. “You look like you need some help though. Why don’t you let me help -”

He cut her off. “No. Stay away, bitch. I remember what you did to me just now.” 

“Well, you just -” She began, before he cut her off again. 

“You can’t help me. You can’t even help yourselves.” He shook his head. “You have no idea what’s going on, or how big this is.” 

“If they find me, they’ll kill me.” He said. As Kara slowly began to approach him once more, trying not to frighten him, he suddenly collapsed. 

_No!_ Kara thought to herself in shock, as she picked the man up and flew at top speed to the nearest hospital. Using her superspeed, she yanked off her mask and hood before quickly bringing him to the attention of ER personnel, then made sure to hang around in order to find out what happened to him. 

An hour after dropping the man off, a nurse quietly informed her that he was dead. 

END PART 3


	4. Part 4

Please note that while the parts of the story that relate to ‘Supergirl’ and ‘Arrow’ belong to DC Comics, the rest is my own creation. 

Again, many thanks go to Angela for her great and thorough beta. This story would have been a lot poorer without her efforts. 

* * *

**-Recently, in our solar system-**

Commander Sia Anders of the Gral empire was new to this area of space. Indeed, despite being human she had never been to her species’ homeworld. As she sat in her cabin, working through reams of documents, she considered her current situation. 

Her current mission was an unusual one: of particular note was the fact that for this mission her orders had specified that she run her ship with an all-human crew. At her request, the orders had been slightly modified in order to permit her second-in-command and a few more of her core officers to join the crew: among these was her second, a non humanoid Hoorian whom she and other humanoids referred to as Lat (his actual name was actually impossible for a human’s vocal apparatus to pronounce) who could be said to ‘feed’ off the rest of the crew in that their exhaled carbon dioxide helped feed his body’s innate photosynthetic processes. Aside from his obvious usefulness with regards to the renewal of the ship’s atmosphere, he was an officer of superior quality with a distinct talent for winning and holding the loyalty of those serving under him. He (the gender-specific pronoun was a useful affectation which he insisted on when dealing with binary races such as humans) was also a good friend, and thus for many reasons Sia hadn’t wanted to contemplate this mission without him. 

Aside from these few officers however, the vast majority of her crew for this mission was human, which was entirely unusual for the imperial navy. The reason for this specification was the nature of their mission: her orders stated that she and her ship were to travel to the human motherworld’s solar system to oversee and use all reasonable means to assist and expedite the empire’s operations there, end quote. 

The Gral empire was a strange proposition. No one who lived under its sometimes brutal rule knew the full story of its origins or what had happened to the race that had created it. Nominally, the Gral still ruled their empire from their homeworld in a distant part of the galaxy. In practice however, their system was interdicted: no one knew why and those few intrepid souls who had dared to attempt an approach had not lived to tell their story. In practice the empire consisted of and was run by members of various races, such as herself, who had either volunteered (although in many cases ‘volunteering’ meant taking the only option available that wasn't starving or being worked to death in the empire's mines) or come to the empire’s service via some other means. Heredity in particular played a large role in the empire, with many a desirable appointment being decided from birth. 

One of the empire’s greatest problems was manpower: throughout its recent history it had been almost continually embroiled in taming the ‘excesses’ of a succession of rebellions in various parts of its far-flung territory. Additionally, it had recently become embroiled in a fight against a bellicose race known as the Kevu, with both sides vying for several resource-rich worlds in a bid for expansion. 

While its technology was quite advanced, one of the empire's most sacrosanct traditions was its aversion to automation of any kind. This aversion was strong enough to qualify as a religion and, while no one now knew the reasons behind it, it was a fundamental tenet of the empire drilled into all from birth. This had oftentimes played a considerable part in the empire's need for bodies, both to man starships and fight its wars, as well as to perform the myriad other tasks required for the empire's survival. In times of labor shortage the empire had frequently found it necessary to recruit conscript labor, with conscripts from worlds which did not have the technological capability to object to the empire’s enslavement of their citizens being preferred. This practice had proven to be particularly useful in times such as these, when it could free up more highly trained and qualified individuals to fight on the war's front lines. 

While conscripts were used throughout the empire, the largest proportion were used in its mines. These were situated all over the empire and were an essential part of supplying the empire's war machine with fuel, building materials, and various other resources. Those tapped to serve in such a way frequently found themselves working in very difficult conditions and miners generally faced severely curtailed lifespans both as a result of accidents or work-related illnesses. 

Sia herself had often wondered why the empire, with its advanced technology, had never made a serious attempt to improve the lot of these workers. Her own family had worked for generations in the empire’s mines, her distant ancestors having been taken from the human motherworld. She had been determined to find a better life for herself and had thus far (mostly) found it in the empire’s navy. 

As a result of its fight against the Kevu, the empire had recently stepped up its ‘recruitment’ efforts in this sector, which was the official reason she found herself traveling to this remote corner of the galaxy. Once there she would be tasked with overseeing the many 'human cargo' ships which were located all over the system, with the entire process being euphemistically referred to as ‘retrieval operations’. 

_That means that no pushback from the Earther slugs will be tolerated,_ she thought to herself, and winced. The truth was that there were times where she didn’t like her job. 

_I don’t have a choice,_ she reminded herself. _It’s literally this or winding up in the mines myself. I even asked to be assigned to the front lines rather than get involved in this kind of thing._

In truth, it wasn’t only the enslavement of helpless beings that she objected to: those carrying out such operations were a select and separate group of individuals, referred to as the retrieval corps, and the corps itself was rotten to the core. All too many of the empire’s current subjects had seen their world enslaved or had been victims of such operations for the majority of the population to be sanguine about the situation. For this reason, considerable secrecy surrounded this side of the empire’s operations and the retrieval corps consisted of individuals carefully selected for their loyalty. For a world such as the humans’ where the existence of the empire and its operations were not common knowledge, the corps also preferred to use agents of the same species as its targets as this did make it simpler for agents to mix with the local population. (Although body modification was quite advanced in the empire and medical technology did make it possible for a member of one species to pass as another, it was considerably easier to simply recruit members of the same species). All agents reportedly underwent extensive conditioning to ensure loyalty to such a degree that they would in fact commit suicide rather than risk capture or discovery. 

Furthermore, while her official orders were to assist and expedite the corps' operations in the Earthers' home system, unofficially she had been tasked with finding out what she could about their operations. In particular, it appeared that there were rumors that the retrieval corps was getting some empire-building ideas of its own and she had been tasked with quietly finding out all she could. 

Sia’s recent orders had led to her being made aware of just how ruthless the retrieval corps was: as it turned out, corps members carrying out retrieval operations on a planetary surface were not only conditioned to ensure loyalty but were also, unbeknownst to the corps members in question, dosed with poison administered during their pre-mission medical evaluations. Thus, in the event of capture and failure to receive the antidote (usually conveniently administered in post-mission medical evaluations), such measures ensured operational security. 

_No, I *definitely* don’t like my job right now,_ she thought to herself, _for one thing it leads to too much time spent with truly loathsome specimens of supposedly intelligent life._

She was distracted from her thoughts when her office door’s buzzer sounded. Sighing, she keyed the door open from her office desk’s panel. 

The creature who stepped inside was yet another unusual aspect of her current mission: it appeared vaguely humanoid with shiny pale grey skin and dark, pupilless eyes. Its uniform, fashioned in the shiny grey material currently favored by the imperial navy, seemed an unfortunate color choice (to human eyes anyways) since its color made it appear somehow both washed out and strangely monochrome. Sia had long ago gotten used to the fact that intelligence came in many different shapes and sizes, yet she admitted she didn’t know what to make of the being before her. Indeed, while she was used to interacting with individuals of many different races, she usually knew something about which race her fellow crewmembers belonged to. Her second officer and ship’s navigator on the other hand, who had identified itself only as Ital’, was something of a mystery (albeit a very competent and courteous one). Ital' had only recently joined her crew and was under orders to accompany her on her current mission -while her new second officer had quickly demonstrated their competence, it remained as much of a mystery as the day it first stepped onto her ship. 

Sia firmly pushed such thoughts aside as Ital' entered the room. 

“What can I do for you, Ital’?” She asked. 

Ital’ blinked and sat in the chair before her when Sia offered it. “We have arrived at the outermost edge of the human’s solar system -I believe this is the part which their communications refer to as the ‘Kuiper Belt’. Shielding has been increased by twenty percent to offset any potential damage, given the many bodies present in this region of space.” 

“And the shields are holding?” 

Ital’ nodded, “Strain on the shields is minimal. We are holding position as you suggested, in order to ensure our arrival is not noted by the Earthers. Which brings me to a question I wished to ask of you, if this is permitted.” 

Sia nodded, “What is your question?” 

“Human technology is, at best, primitive, yet we are taking the precaution of studying their planet prior to moving further insystem. Do you believe such precautions are necessary?” 

Sia sighed and leaned back in her chair. “I don’t know that it is, but I prefer to be cautious. I also think it’s important to note that ‘primitive technology’ does not imply ‘lower intelligence’. The reports I’ve read do state that they have developed certain devices to peer into space, both near and distant, which is why I thought it was better to proceed with caution and maximize the chances of our arrival being indistinguishable from certain natural space phenomena. As you know, the corps ships tend to be considerably smaller than ours and therefore likely to be more difficult to detect, yet they also take the precaution of hiding on the far side of planetary bodies or otherwise have made use of this region's existing spatial phenomena. We will of course use our usual technological means to cloak this ship's arrival further insystem, but we will also time it as carefully as possible. In the meantime, we will use shuttles to conduct our business.” 

Nodding, Ital’ stood, then spoke again, “I also wished to ask why you will be visiting the human homeworld. It is not something which is required of the commander of a mission such as this -your purpose is to ensure that recruitment operations proceed with all speed. This does not require your presence on the human homeworld and I do wonder whether this could be counterproductive.” 

Sia eyed the being before her, “Are you questioning my orders?” 

Ital’ hastily replied, “No! Not at all. I was merely curious as to your motivations.” 

“That’s fine,” she replied, “as long as you carry out my orders and you don’t do it in front of the crew.” 

Bowing solemnly with its imperturbable expression, Ital’ turned to leave. 

“Just a minute.” Sia called out. Ital’ turned back to her. 

“When I go to the human’s world, you’ll be going with me.” She stated, and she noted the look of surprise in its eyes. For herself she didn’t understand why she was insisting on this, but she had learned long ago to trust her hunches, and her gut was telling her this was important. It was unusual for someone in her position to be placed in the position to scrutinize the actions of the corps, who were generally considered to be untouchable -several military commanders who had delved too deeply into its activities in the past had been heavily sanctioned by the empire’s leadership. However, the nature of her orders left her no choice -and if she was going to do this she was damned well going to use every tool at her disposal, including her strange but extremely useful second officer. 

“I am not -“ It started to protest. 

“-Not human, no.” She finished for it. “But I will need you to monitor our transmission and translation devices and to stay with the ship whenever I disembark. We’ll leave at the beginning of my next shift to inspect the first of the retrieval corps ships.” 

“As you wish, commander.” It said quietly, then bowed again and left Sia’s office. 

* * *

Sia and Ital’ left the ship during her next shift, with the stated aim of carrying out an inspection of one of the retrieval corps’ ships. As Sia piloted their small shuttle during their approach to dock with one of the other ship’s airlocks, she idly watched the other ship’s rounded, stocky shape grow bigger on her viewscreen. 

She knew things would be difficult and that she was going beyond what was required by her official mission brief: on the other hand such efforts were required if she was to fulfill her unofficial mission. The corps' discretionary powers were traditionally enforced both by the legal separation between the retrieval corps and the imperial military as well as by the attitudes of the empire’s upper echelons, who generally took a rather dim view of military commanders who were seen to be interfering in corps affairs. 

It seemed some of her superiors had doubts regarding the corps’ loyalty. Indeed (and while the unethical nature of its activities was beyond question), her superiors had become concerned at the corps’ apparent slow progress with regards to the acceleration of activities: while the speed of ‘retrievals’ had increased, there were serious questions being raised as to why this increase was not more substantial. Given the rumors which had surfaced regarding the corps’ overall ambitions and which had made mention of slaves being ‘redirected’ to criminal syndicates in other parts of the galaxy, her superiors had been concerned. 

In truth, Sia didn’t look forward to any aspect of this mission and had tried to find some way to refuse to undertake it, despite the harm this could have done to her career. Her demonstrated competence to date, a competence which her superiors had wanted deployed in this particular endeavour, had prevented her arguments for being heard. And so here she was. 

Once the mated airlocks flashed green, she stepped onto the ship, leaving Ital’ behind. She was met by a short and stocky human man with curly brown hair and a benign, even gentle expression. 

The man saluted her. “Commander Anders? Welcome aboard the Sholk. My name is Rufus Faulk. I have been asked to accompany and guide you during your tour of our ship.” 

_All right, I can see why this one was chosen to be the face of the corps,_ she thought to herself with considerable sarcasm. 

Letting none of her thoughts transpire on her face, she nodded and let him guide her onwards into the ship for a tour which was polite, brief, and uneventful. And utterly useless for her purposes. 

_It’ll be much the same when I visit the other ships, unfortunately. The only way I may be able to gain a better understanding of what they do would be to witness it for myself,_ she reminded herself with considerable distaste. 

Getting the corps’ representatives to let her do so would certainly be a challenge. Getting them to forego the usual operational security measures in her case would be even more so, but brainwashing and poison would certainly run counter to her true purpose here, so she would have to be convincing. 

_It’s a good thing I’m always up for a challenge,_ she thought as she thanked her guide for the tour and departed the ship. 

* * *

Evening was upon Star City and the sun was nearing the horizon when Kara entered the basement of Verdant. It had been another long day of work at Queen Industries. 

A few days had passed since her rescue of a man had resulted in the death of one of his would-be kidnappers. Kara, Felicity, and Diggle had tried to find out who the dead man was, as well as what he was doing in Star City, to no avail. 

She headed over to Felicity’s bank of consoles, hoping that this night would be different. 

“Hey Kara. I have some news for you.” Felicity said as Kara took a seat next to her. 

“What is it?” Kara asked. 

“Well, first of all, I did manage to fix your little problem for you.” Felicity said, and Kara smiled in relief. 

She had been forced to cut short her recent stay at a local hospital when she overheard a nurse speaking about her to a local tabloid. Following that incident, she had worried about the fact that her identity had likely been noted in hospital records. Unfortunately, when she had tried to visit (read, break into) the hospital in order to retrieve her records, she had discovered that they were computerized and hadn’t been sure of how to proceed. 

“All computer records of your stay at Star City Memorial have been destroyed. Of course, that doesn't absolutely guarantee that there aren't some hardcopy documents about you somewhere, but based on what I read in their files they did switch to a fully computerized system a few years ago. I went through their computer archives and there was no mention of any extra documents or sample relating to your case, so I'd say you're probably good. Also, while I can’t do anything about the one or two people who saw your face -at the hospital, and that girl you saved- I have written a program that is going to monitor social media traffic so that at least, if someone talks about you for some reason, you’ll have advance warning.” 

Kara closed her eyes in relief, then opened them to give Felicity a grateful smile. “THANK you. Honestly, that's a real worry off my mind. I mean...” Her voice trailed off. 

Felicity’s expression was sympathetic. “I understand. I know I wouldn’t want that kind of attention, if I were in your shoes. I just hope that's the end of it and you never have to worry about it again.” 

Kara nodded again as Felicity turned her attention back to her computers. 

“The other news I have for you is that Oliver-” Felicity smiled sympathetically when she noted Kara’s wince, “…Oliver had an encounter similar to yours last night.” 

“Oh?” 

Felicity nodded, “Yes. Lately he’s been going out on his own, kinda like you. I really think that something really weird is going on. I mean -he stopped another two women and a man who were trying to kidnap a homeless woman. One of the guys got away, but the other died just when Oliver was about to arrange for a police 'pickup'. His records also list poison as the most likely cause of death, although the exact agent hasn't been identified.” 

“You told me that the autopsy report said that the one I found also died as a result of poisoning?” Kara asked. 

“Yes. They don’t seem to have identified the agent in that case either, although that’s not unusual since that can apparently take up to several months. There is something else though: he didn't have any ID on him, just like the one you deal with. He did have an address on him, though. Oliver left to go chase it down -it looks like it's some kind of warehouse-”

They were interrupted when Felicity’s phone began to buzz. “That might be him now,” Felicity stated as she picked it up. 

“Hi Oliver.” She said, as Kara prepared to tune out another conversation. One side effect of having super acute hearing was having to make a conscious effort to respect other people’s privacy and to not listen to conversations which were none of her business. 

Just as Kara decided to move away, Felicity grabbed her arm. “...Say that again?” She said into her telephone, indicating that Kara should sit back down. She then punched a few keys on her keyboard, and Kara's eyes widened as Felicity’s efforts brought forth the nightmarish scene of a burning building into view on her computer screens. 

Felicity turned to Kara, the phone still against her ear. “This is from the news -they just got a hold of this. That’s… that's the warehouse I was telling you about.” 

Felicity suddenly gasped, “Oliver says that he thinks there might be people in there, but he can't get to them! He called 911 but they may not make it in time. He wanted me to ask you-” She said, turning towards. Kara nodded and was gone a moment later. 

* * *

The first thing Kara noticed as she flew over the burning warehouse was the extreme heat. 

_Well, hopefully I'm immune to extreme heat, smoke, and toxic fumes,_ Kara thought to herself, trying to recall what her cousin had said on the subject as she flew through a broken window and landed on the ground floor of the burning building. 

She focused on her x-ray vision as she completed a 360 degree turn, trying to determine if and where were she could find the people Oliver had mentioned. She identified what appeared to be two adults huddled in a corner at the eastern side of the building, apparently trapped as a result of the flames which blocked the only passage out of the room they were in. 

Wincing at the thought of what this would do to her clothes, she ran through the flames, then slapped out the flames on her shirt and pants. She then ran into the room itself and, realizing the occupants had fainted as a result of the smoke, didn’t bother trying to explain as she punched and kicked an opening through the wall to the outside. Picking both people up, she then ran outside at superspeed and gently laid them down several meters away from the building. Seeing a passerby on the street beyond, she waved them over to the two injured men and flew away before they could get a good look at her. 

Once back inside the building she realized that the rest of the people were trapped in various parts of the building and, as they were located on several floors and in many different areas of the building, her current strategy ran the risk of not being able to save everyone in time. 

She could see that the fire itself was still mostly contained to the center of the building where there had been some kind of elevator or stairwell access to the various floors. It was thus burning on several levels, while the people were trapped in various sections on the periphery: getting to everyone in time would be more difficult than dealing with the fire itself. It seemed also that the fire was being fed by oxygen supplied to it via a hole in the roof, which seemed to have resulted from some kind of ongoing work. The temporary tarp covering the hole seemed to have come undone, however, such that the sky was visible through it. 

_I guess I'll have to do things the conspicuous way then,_ she thought to herself, and changed her approach. 

Flying at full speed towards the fire, then flying upwards right next to the fire itself, she used her breath to freeze the area around the fire on every floor as she went, pushing the temperature low enough that it went out on every floor she passed. Finally, she broke through the hole and flew above the roof, freezing away the last part of the fire. 

Just as she finished, she heard the sound of a helicopter and dove back into the building. As she reached the ground floor and stepped away from the center of the building, she caught sight of Oliver’s green suited figure. He pointed towards a corner of the building where two people lay unconscious. 

Kara nodded, “That’s fine. I’ll get the others!” She yelled as he ran towards them. 

A few minutes later, after several more rescues, Kara carried out a final visual sweep and in order to confirm that no one was left in the building. 

“Is anyone left?” Oliver asked as he walked up to meet her. Kara shook her head. 

“No. I think it’s time to leave.” She said. She gestured to him and they ran to on one of the windows and confirmed what she had suspected: the building was surrounded by emergency services, police, and what seemed to be reporters and gawking members of the public. 

“Damn.” Oliver said softly as he reached the window. “I don’t suppose you have any way to get around that? Normally I’d use the roof and make my way to the next building that way, but with the structural damage to the building from the fire…”

Kara laughed. “I can get us out of here without being seen. I’d have to carry you, though.” 

Oliver winced, “Well, I don’t think I have a choice right now. I don’t really want to explain anything to the Star City police and I’d rather not have to hurt any of them. It’s, uhm…” His voice trailed off. 

“Complicated.” Kara completed the sentence for him. 

He nodded. 

“Fine. But we need to talk.” She stated firmly. 

He shrugged. “Fine. I guess that’s fair.” And an instant later, they were gone. 

* * *

Kara and Oliver’s return to Verdant was uneventful. When they arrived, they noted that both Diggle and Felicity appeared subdued. Both of them were staring at Felicity’s computer screens. 

“What’s wrong?” Oliver asked. “What’s the matter?” 

“I’m sorry Kara.” Diggle said in lieu of reply as Felicity pointed at her screens. 

Kara came around to see what had engaged their attention, and gasped when she saw the news footage of herself flying above the warehouse. 

Felicity nodded sympathetically, “It looks like they got some pretty good footage of you doing that… freezing thing. And of you flying. The media are going crazy with this -I’m pretty sure it’s already been picked up worldwide.” 

Her friends were silent and Kara felt fear grip her, despite the fact that this was not unexpected. 

“The good thing is that you did still have a good part of your costume on, including your mask, when they filmed you. But maybe we should invest in some more resistant gear for you…” Felicity’s voice trailed off as she winced. “I’m sorry Kara, I’ll shut up now.” 

Kara sighed, “No, it’s all right. I knew it was going to happen sometime. As long as they don’t figure out who I am, it’ll be fine.” 

After watching the news footage for a few more minutes, Oliver turned and began to walk away. 

Kara called out to him, “Where do you think you’re going? We need to talk, remember?” 

Oliver turned back to her, “Now?” 

Behind her, Diggle snorted, “Oh hell no. If you’re both going to rehash all your personal drama, can you please give me enough time to leave the room? I didn’t even like Melrose Place when it was on TV, for crying out loud…”

Oliver rolled his eyes and pointed at the far corner of the room. Kara nodded. 

As they walked away from their friends, Oliver asked, “How about I meet you outside? We can talk after I’ve changed.” 

“Okay.” She replied, as they walked off in different directions. 

* * *

After leaving Verdant they walked for a time, following the river. 

After a few minutes, Kara broke the silence. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry I hid things from you. On the other hand, you hid some pretty big things too. So maybe we could move past it and at least agree to work together?” 

Oliver sighed, “Kara, I’m not saying you’re wrong, but…” He paused. 

“But?” She prompted. 

He stopped and raked a hand through his hair. “Look, I don’t think you did anything wrong. You didn’t do anything I didn’t do. Intellectually, I understand that. I even understand *why* you didn’t tell me the truth. But I guess emotionally it’s just going to take a while for me to come to terms with it.” 

He paused again, then continued, “I even know I’m not being fair to you. I know it doesn’t make sense. I’m not angry with you. It’s just that-”

He paused, and she waited in silence for him to finish. 

“-I don’t trust easily. I also *know* it’s often a weakness. The point is, though, that this is something that I struggle with. So to have someone I not only liked but was considering going beyond friendship with hide things from me, however justifiably, is hard. It’s not fair of me, because I *know* I was doing the same thing to you. But it’s how I feel and right now, I can’t get past it.” 

“It also brought home the fact that my life is in a pretty dark place right now, and that I honestly don’t know if there’s room in my life for a relationship right now.” He shrugged. “I probably should have thought about that before, I’ll admit.” 

He then paused again. “Did Diggle or Felicity tell you about what I’ve been doing? I mean, you know some of what I do because you’ve seen it, but did they tell you everything about why I’ve been away so much?” 

Kara nodded, “Yes.” Then she paused and shrugged. “Well, not all of it. They said that you’ve been fighting to protect the people of this city, but they didn’t give me a lot of details. I think they felt that it wasn’t up to them to tell me, despite what I knew, and that it would be better coming from you.” 

Extending his hand and glancing at her for permission, he noted her nod of acquiescence and began to walk with her towards a nearby bridge over the river. Stopping, he turned towards her and leaned against the railing. 

“I was on a boat that was shipwrecked a few years ago. Because of that of that I spent several years on an island far away from here… it’s complicated. The short version of my story is that I only made it back to Star City about a year ago. While I was away, I saw and did some pretty terrible things. It… changed me. And when I came back, I came back with a mission. I wanted to change things, make them better. There are a lot of evil people in this city and the only way I could see to accomplish that goal was to make sure the bad people of this city paid for their crimes. I knew that no court would ever sentence them for the things they have done and continue to do.” 

Looking over into her eyes, he continued with his confession, “So I started killing them. I’ve killed a lot of people, Kara. Whatever the reason, at the end of the day, the fact is that I’m a murderer.” 

“So are you sure you want to have anything to do with that? Or with me?” He finished quietly. 

The wind blew a gentle breeze into the air as Kara pondered her reply. 

Finally, she spoke. “It sounds like you’ve already made up your mind for both of us. Maybe next time,” she added acerbically, “you could involve me in the discussion before presenting me with your decision?” 

“Kara-” Oliver began, but Kara cut him off. 

“No Oliver. I can understand why my not telling you my secret was hard for you. I’ve actually understood that for a while, because I do know you. That’s why I gave you some space -I figured we’d talk about this when you were ready. What I *don’t* understand and what makes me a more than a little angry at this point, is that I’m really not sure you were even going to talk to me about this before deciding it wasn’t going to work.” 

She continued, “I know we only went on one date, so technically you don’t owe me anything. But I thought we were friends. So I’m a little angry that you weren’t going to talk to me about this -until I twisted your arm anyways. I’m also annoyed that you seem to have decided what’s ‘best’ without even considering the possibility of discussing it with me.” 

He stared at her in surprise for a moment. “I guess I hadn’t thought of it that way.” He said sheepishly. 

“About the rest of it… I don’t know Oliver. Is this a good idea? Honestly, I don’t know. Are you a murderer? I can’t help but think that it isn’t that simple. I know you aren’t evil-”

He tried to speak and she continued over him, “I *know* that you aren’t evil. I can’t speak to all of your actions. But I do know that much about you: you’re a good man.” 

She paused, “And I know you can do good things. I think that you can do better than you’ve done up to now. Your past… it doesn’t have to define you, Oliver.” 

He was staring at her. After a moment, he raised hand and gently touched her face. 

“You really believe that, don’t you?” 

She smiled and nodded, “Yes,” she said, and they resumed their walk. 

* * *

Two days after that talk, things were still somewhat unsettled. While Oliver was making an effort to include Kara in all their efforts at unmasking those responsible for the various disappearances and while they were back on friendly terms in general, things were still strained between them. 

According to the news (as well as Felicity’s hacking efforts), the police had concluded that the warehouse fire had been arson. The search for those responsible was ongoing but had not yet yielded any viable suspects. Felicity had however managed to discover that the building was owned by a privately held company known by the generic name of Bureau Investments, for which little information regarding ownership was available. Another peculiar detail which had not been widely circulated but which Felicity had managed to uncover was that several of the people whom Oliver and Kara had rescued from the building had been reported as missing, while some others were claiming they had been kidnapped but had not been reported missing. 

Some digging into the backgrounds of the two deceased men whose kidnapping attempts had been foiled by Kara and Oliver had revealed very little. Neither Felicity (who, aside from hacking their medical records, had spent quite a bit of time running facial recognition software to attempt to ascertain their movements) nor the police (who, once the crimes had been reported by their potential victims, had released the two men’s faces to the media) had been able to make any headway in their identification. Artist sketches based on their intended victims’ recollections of the two men’s accomplices had similarly yielded no leads. In fact the only new information which the police had been able to uncover was that one of the intended victims had reported that two of their kidnappers had spoken in a language they didn’t recognize and couldn’t place, which was not extremely useful. Felicity had ascertained and plotted the locations of every reported abduction in the city and identified the epicenter as The Glades. What was more, she had been able to determine that several other jurisdictions were reporting recent spikes in missing persons cases. 

This was why, two nights later Oliver, Diggle, and Kara found themselves patrolling the streets of The Glades: their objective was to intervene in the event of another kidnapping attempt as well as attempt to shake something loose. 

Kara was flying over the streets of The Glades while Oliver and Diggle travelled from street to street and, occasionally, roof to roof. Eventually, the two men stopped and took a short break somewhere near the river. 

As they did so, Diggle turned to give Oliver a pointed look. 

“You’ve been pretty distant with Kara lately, you know. And again, I'll ask you to please not share any gory details,” he said humorously, “but I thought you guys talked. Or something. Is everything all right?” 

Oliver shrugged. “Yes and no. It’s-”

“-complicated, yeah, I figured. You’ve been freezing Kara out for while now.” Diggle sighed, “I mean, I know she didn’t tell you her secrets, but you didn’t either, honestly. You both got outed at the same time -it seems to me you’re both even.” Diggle paused. 

“So why do I get the feeling you're still angry with her?” He asked Oliver. 

Oliver didn’t immediately reply. When he finally did, his words were hesitant and almost difficult to hear against the sighing of the wind in the trees. “It’s… Look, I *know* it’s not fair of me to be cold with her. It’s just…” He sighed, “I think it’s partly my family and partly what’s happened to me in the past.” 

“You have to understand,” he continued, “that my family have always had power. In fact, part of the problem is that they and those in their circle tended to misuse it. Don’t get me wrong -I love my family. They’ve always been there for me and my sister. But I’ve known for a long time that they weren’t always good people. And with what I went through during the past few years…”

“The point is that, in my experience, people with power generally misuse it and hurt those who don’t. It’s been something of a constant in what I’ve seen of the world. And Kara has power. A lot of power. I guess that scares me a bit.” 

He was surprised when Diggle smacked him on the back of the head. “What was that for?” He asked, puzzled and a bit angry. 

Diggle snorted. “You, my friend, need to get your head out of your own ass. That has to be one of the dumbest things you’ve said in a while. Which is saying something.” 

Oliver gave him a dirty look. 

Diggle sighed. “Look. The truth is, if I didn’t know that girl, I just might agree with you because it's true that the stuff she can do is pretty incredible. But I’m not worried -you’re talking about the girl that is one of the most powerful people on this planet, and what has she done with all that power? Has she tried to take over the world? Or even just our lovely little nation?” 

“Everything she does is to *help* others or just to fit in, Oliver. She’s spent her time working quietly at *your* company, just trying to have a job and fit in with us humans. Now that she’s started to use her powers, she’s been spending every free moment she has trying to save lives. I don’t think they make them any better than that, honestly. So maybe you could cut her a little slack and get over yourself.” 

He continued, “But also, maybe you need to cut yourself some slack too. You deserve to be happy, Oliver, and I think she brings that out in you. So why not give it a shot?” He finished, getting ready to resume their patrol. 

Oliver was frowning. “All right, I’ll think about it.” He said after a brief silence, and they returned to their patrol, and they spent another few hours wandering through The Glades. Their efforts were not entirely fruitless as they did put a stop to the attempted robbery of a local convenience store and managed to question several passersby (or rather, Diggle had questioned them, as Oliver had pointed out that his Hood costume was now pretty well known in Star City, and while Diggle acquiesced somewhat reluctantly, it was not without pointing that a black man in a hoodie on the streets of today’s America was not that inconspicuous either). They did not uncover any new information with regards to the recent spate of disappearances. 

They were preparing to call it a night and return to Verdant when Felicity called to inform them of an attempted abduction taking place only a few blocks from where they stood. Oliver and Diggle began running and found the location a few minutes later, to find that Kara had knocked out two men and a woman, and had just cornered a second woman. 

“If you take care of this one, I’ll go check on their victim -the poor man ran that way,” she stated, glaring as the woman began to inch away from her. 

“I wouldn’t try that if I were you,” Kara stated, punching a hole in the wall of the abandoned warehouse the woman was leaning against in order to make her point. The woman gaped and her eyes widened in even greater shock as Kara lifted from the ground and flew away. 

She stared at the air long after Kara had departed, paying little attention to Diggle and Oliver as they drew near. She seemed to be in shock. Stepping up to her, Oliver took out a set of double zip ties and cuffed the woman’s arms behind her. 

“Are we leaving her for the police?” Diggle asked as Oliver gestured to the woman, indicating that she should walk ahead of them. As the woman quietly complied, Oliver shook his head. 

“No. I think we need to ask some hard questions -something big is going on here. If I felt I could trust the police to investigate this as it should be investigated I’d let them have her, but you and I both know they’ve been dragging their heels on this one. If they weren’t there would have been public appeals for help and much more emphasis on this in the media, and that hasn’t happened. That means that there’s probably been little real interest on high in getting this solved.” Diggle nodded. 

“Can you tell us your name?” He asked the woman. 

“You may call me Sia,” she said distractedly, “Sia Anders.” She then refused to answer any more questions. Shaking his head, Oliver kept walking. 

As they did so the woman, who still appeared to be in a state of shock, whispered a single word. 

“Kryptonian.” She said, and both Diggle and Oliver both turned to stare at her in astonishment. 

END PART FOUR


	5. Part 5

It had been three days since Sia Anders’ capture -days which had been spent alone in a cell below ground with nothing to do but to contemplate her circumstances. She had been provided with food and water and had steadfastly refused to answer any questions put to her. 

While she had not been mistreated, she could admit to some resentment of her circumstances. In all fairness however, she supposed it was not unreasonable for these Earthers to object to her collaboration in the retrieval corps’ operations. 

_Let’s call things what they are though,_ she told herself, _because you are complicit in the enslavement of countless numbers of their people._

She sighed. These mental wanderings did not provide an answer to the most important question for her at the moment: what to do now? 

Sia raised her head as she heard footsteps approaching her cell. 

“Do you need anything?” The young woman asked. Sia shook her head. 

“All righty then. I guess… I’ll go back to my work then.” The woman turned and walked away. 

_They aren’t very good at this,_ Sia considered. _Nowhere near ruthless enough, to be sure._

If they had been practised at this, they would have avoided using their names, at the very least. Their methods of extracting information also left much to be desired. 

_On the other hand, they may not be as inept as all that,_ she thought. _For one thing, I’m so bored I have given serious consideration to clawing out my own eyeballs._

With nothing better to do, she decided to catch up on her sleep (sleep deprivation was a definite hazard in the imperial navy, so the opportunity to address this was an unexpected plus). Since all imperial personnel were required to remain in shape, she also made a point of engaging in her regular calisthenics, despite being somewhat limited by her surroundings. While completing her usual exercises she noted that the girl’s (Felicity?) eyes widened at a particularly adventurous move involving a somersault. Despite this attempt to remain active however, boredom assailed her. 

Several hours later she was sitting against the wall of her cell and contemplating the strange urge she had to shove Felicity’s clicking keyboard into the nearest garbage disposal unit. At this moment, she was joined by one of the two men who had captured her, who stopped before the door to her cell. 

“My name is Oliver. Oliver Queen.” He said, introducing himself. 

She gazed calmly back at him. “Yes?” 

“I don’t suppose you want to tell us what you were doing, or what’s going on.” He asked. 

“No.” She replied. Were they ever going to get to the torture? She certainly had better things to do than remain here for the rest of her existence. 

Rather than begin anything of the kind, he waited only a moment before shrugging and walking away, the muted sound of his footsteps sounding loudly in the quiet of the room. 

* * *

Felicity knows that the woman listens. She listens to the echoes of their lives away from the darkness of the room she is being held in, as the others speak to Felicity about whatever they’ve been doing on the outside. 

Honestly, it’s a bit creepy. 

Given what the woman had said when Oliver and Diggle captured her, they had suggested that Kara try to speak with her. When Kara tried that however, she quickly backed away into the darkest corner of her cell, avoiding any further interaction. For some reason she watches whenever Kara is in the room, following her every move. 

And that? Also creepy. 

She eats and drinks whatever they give her, performs some weird and really scary fitness routine on a regular basis, and sleeps a lot. 

And watches. And is super creepy. 

Felicity really could have done without this extra ‘company’ basically breathing down her neck, and she wishes the woman would just tell them something or that they could just turn her over to the police (she still doesn’t understand why that didn’t happen, because it’s not like she’s been in any way forthcoming). 

Thankfully Felicity is able to ignore her for the most part when it counts, like now, when yet another abduction is in progress in The Glades. Felicity is coordinating things on her end, keeping a watchful eye on the feeds from several local cameras along with relevant internet traffic, police radio, and various other important odds and ends (needless to say, Felicity knows she deserves a hefty pay raise for what she does). She listens as they manage to stop another abduction, then listens as one of the perpetrators dies as Oliver attempts CPR. 

Once it’s over she steps away from her computer screens, needing a minute to gather herself after the ordeal of the past few minutes. The woman is still watching her, standing just inside the door to her cell, and Felicity has had it. 

She steps up to the woman’s cell. “Are you happy -is this what you wanted? Are you *ever* going to try and do anything to stop this, or are people just going to keep disappearing and dying?” 

The woman stares at her in silence. 

“That’s what I thought.” Felicity says contemptuously, then walks away. 

* * *

Sia had just completed another day of sleeping, watchful awareness, boredom, and calisthenics when she was joined by the one who called himself Oliver. He came to a halt before the bars of her cell, then sat down. 

“I don’t know what’s going on here. None of us do. I also suspect we’re not going to find out unless you tell us something,” he said without preamble. 

“…So how about it?” He asked her. 

When she didn’t reply, he sighed. “Fine. It seems to me that you have two choices. One would be not to tell us. In that case, we’d hand you over to the police. A second choice would be to come clean and tell us what you know.” 

She laughed, yet the sound was devoid of humor. “There is a third choice which you seem to be disregarding: you could force me to reveal this information to you.” 

Oliver nodded. “Yes, we could. Or rather, I could.” He pointed in the direction of Felicity, Diggle, and Kara, who were at the other end of the room, apparently discussing something on one of Felicity’s computer screens. Oliver pointed towards his friends, “They would never do what you’re suggesting, simply because they’re good people and couldn’t even conceive of torturing someone.” 

“But you could?” She asked pointedly. 

He shrugged. “I’ve done things in the past -things that were wrong. Until recently, I could done it. I know that I could have tortured you if I felt I needed to. I know that because I’ve justified things like that to myself in the past.” 

“So why don’t you do it?” She asked. 

He smiled. “I won’t *because* of them. Because I was recently reminded by these people, by who and what they are, that I don’t need to be the kind of person who does things like that. I know now that I don’t *want* to be the kind of person who does things like that. I realized recently that I can *choose* to do things differently -it doesn’t erase the things I did in the past. But I can be better in the future because I choose to be. Because I desperately want to be.” 

“What is your point?” She asked him, looking away. 

“My point is that you can decide to do things differently, too. I can *see* that you’ve done things, things that I’m not sure your comfortable with. My point is that you don’t need to keep following that path -there’s always a choice. But it has to come from you.” 

“Think about it,” he said softly as he picked himself up and walked away. 

Sia thought about it that night and the following day. She thought of her childhood working in the empire’s hellish mines on the planet Tal’t, where she had witnessed the deaths first of her mother, then the grandmother who had raised her from work-related lung ailments. With no family left and no income or resources to speak of, she had escaped through the only avenue open to her: the imperial navy. Thanks to modern imperial medicine the damage done to her lungs as a result of her own work in the mines as a child was repaired -thankfully the navy was far from elitist and had been willing to recruit her despite her lack of formal education. She still remembered the day she had visited that dusty recruitment office, as well as the personnel's open skepticism when faced with the dusty and ignorant child she had been. Once given the opportunity, she had thrown herself into the work and had managed to surprise all her detractors. 

She had spent her life working to escape her childhood. In order to escape that hell she had seen and done many, many things she wasn’t proud of or comfortable with. Somehow, she had managed to avoid facing that truth by burying herself in her work and by avoiding postings such as this one, where the reality of the empire was made all too clear. 

She realized that somehow, he had been right about her. Somehow, she desperately wanted something *different*. She wanted to be more. 

She wanted to be free. 

* * *

A few more days went by, and spring began to move towards summer. Everywhere in the city trees were green and flowers were in bloom as most of the city's children looked forward to the summer, ignorant of the dangers now lurking in the streets. 

Kara, Diggle, and Oliver spent their days and evenings patrolling The Glades, trying to stagger the times each of them were on the streets. Felicity had her devices recording everything she could, but there was simply no way for them to be out there all the time. Out of desperation Felicity had begun to attempt the development of a program to recognize potential abductions, although she admitted that the chances of this working anytime in the near future were slim at best. 

It was late evening, the night having long since gone dark. Felicity and Diggle had left some time ago and Oliver had remained to train. Kara was using Felicity’s computers to complete some remaining work for her job at Queen Industries while taking up Felicity's usual surveillance of the city's cameras -Felicity had only half jokingly stated that Kara had better not get any viruses or malware onto her computers if she didn’t want any nasty surprises on hers. 

Kara was definitely NOT looking in Oliver's direction -why did he have to train shirtless anyways? It was distracting. 

It was then that the woman spoke, low enough that only Kara could hear. Kara stood and walked over to the cell, as Oliver stopped training to join her. 

“My people have encountered your species before,” the woman stated. “You should know that meeting you was… unexpected.” 

Then, as Kara and Oliver listened, she detailed the empire’s history and explained the nature of its operations in this sector of the galaxy. 

* * *

Sia did not spare herself, laying out her own complicity in what had transpired. 

She was tired of fighting the wrong war. She had intended to tell them everything but somehow, some intuition caused her to avoid detailing the covert side of her orders. She explained instead that the empire had sent her to oversee the corps’ operations. Coming to the end of her explanation, she was silent. 

“Why was it unexpected to meet me?” Kara asked her once she had finished. 

Sia was surprised by her response. “You… do not know?” She asked. 

Kara shrugged. “Um, no. It’s complicated, but no. Whatever happened between your empire and my people is not something I’m aware of.” 

Sia nodded, puzzled. How could this be? “Roughly three centuries ago -you will have to forgive my inexactitude regarding the dates, as I am no historian- the empire encountered your people. Your race was the single most technologically advanced species the empire has ever encountered -some historians suggest that Krypton’s technology may even have exceeded our own. The powers your people possessed in the proximity of a yellow sun were another concern. Your people objected rather strenuously to some of the empire’s practices, particularly when it came to the enslavement of other races. There was a war. The empire did eventually defeat Krypton's forces, yet some of our more adventurous historians have suggested that the empire came very close to defeat. In the end I believe it was the simple difference in numbers which enabled us to prevail.” 

Kara was silent, watching her with wide eyes. Her expression was horrified and Oliver glanced at her in sympathy. 

“What happened to my people?” She asked, finally. 

Sia sighed. “They are no more. The war itself lasted approximately one hundred years. By the end of the war the empire had exhausted nearly all its resources -indeed, it was lucky to survive. Your people were not so lucky.” She said. “I am sorry.” 

“Are you sure there aren’t any of us left?” Kara asked. 

Sia shrugged. “As sure as it is possible to be. While there were some few survivors after the war, the privations imposed on your world were made to ensure that Krypton would never again rise against the empire. It was eventually destroyed in order to ensure this would be the case.” 

“No one in the empire has seen one of your people in over a hundred years. I am sorry.” She said. Kara's face wore an expression of horror. 

Sia was silent as the other two digested this new information. Finally, Kara stood. “I think I should go,” she said. Sia put out a hand to stop her. 

“There is something more.” She said. Kara was obviously not in a state to hear it, but Sia continued regardless. “You need to understand that your people’s actions… In all of our recorded history, your people were the only ones who ever truly stood a chance against the empire. In the eyes of many, Krypton and its people are a legend -a symbol. Your people may be gone but what they accomplished has made them into a powerful symbol. So the fact that you are here, on this world…” Her voice trailed off. 

Taking a deep breath Kara nodded and thanked her for the information she had provided, then ran outside. 

Oliver followed her. 

Once outside, Kara leaned her head against the side of the building, trying not to be sick. She started when she felt a hand land grip her shoulder and turned to face him. Her eyes were full of tears. 

“I can’t believe this. I mean, this is apparently a whole other galaxy apart from the one I came from. But once again, my whole race gets destroyed. I mean, what are the odds?” 

“Are you all right?” Oliver asked, and she burst into tears. Reaching out, he took her into his arms and held her, telling her again how sorry he was. She sobbed for a time, then realized she was getting his shirt wet and pulled back. 

“Oh. Um, I’m sorry…” She said. 

He waved her words away, “Don’t worry about it. How are you feeling?” He asked gently, and she sighed. 

“Not too wonderful, honestly. This is just…” Her eyes filled with tears again and he took her hands. 

“I can imagine it’s overwhelming. I’m sorry Kara.” 

They were silent for a moment, then she sighed. “What do we do now?” She asked, still feeling lost and adrift, and he shrugged. 

“I think we need to tell John and Felicity about all of this. We’ll need to question her further as well.” 

Kara took a deep breath. “We need to stop them.” She said firmly. 

Oliver nodded. “We will. I know we will,” he said. 

They stayed where they were for a few moments, deep in thought. Kara tried to process what she had just learned. She shook her head. 

“Weren’t you angry with me recently… or something?” She asked him tiredly. 

He smiled. “As our good friend John pointed out to me, I was being an ass. I’m really sorry.” 

Kara nodded, “Yeah, you kinda were.” She was too emotionally exhausted to give it much thought however, which Oliver seemed to realize since he quickly changed the subject. 

Oliver nodded and squeezed her hand. “How about I take you home? I’ll just make sure our ‘guest’ has everything she needs for another night and take you to get some dinner.” 

Kara nodded. “That would be nice.” She said, her heart feeling deeply bruised. 

“I’ll be right back.” Oliver promised, as Kara leaned against Verdant’s wall and remembered her childhood. 

* * *

The next morning they met with Diggle and Felicity to discuss the situation. After considerable discussion and with input from their prisoner, a decision was made to attempt to rescue some of the prisoners: the ship Anders had arrived in was still on the planet and many of the prisoners had already been moved to it. Given the risks involved, it was not a decision they were all comfortable with. 

Kara, Oliver, Diggle, and Commander Anders were en route to the ship's location just outside the city. Felicity had stayed behind in order to act as their logistical support, as well as to keep an eye on events in Star City. 

Commander Anders had agreed to help them carry out, as Diggle had put it, “their crazy-ass plan”. Even he had been forced to agree that it would be difficult to convince the authorities to act on this information without proof -their first step would therefore be to board the ship and free its prisoners. They would then contact the police and attempt to convince them of the truth -admittedly not an easy task, but one which might be marginally easier with witnesses and testimonials. 

Anders had explained that while the ship was generally hidden from view as well as from radar and other human technology via some kind of cloak, this could be nullified by knocking out the engines, which acted as its power source. They should therefore also be able to record the ship once it became visible. Their admittedly slim hope, for the moment, was that someone would believe them and that Earth’s being aware of what the empire was doing would at least make it more difficult to carry out its operations. 

They had decided that Kara would head for the engine room and disable the engines using her special abilities, while Oliver and Commander Anders liberated the prisoners. 

The four of them drove out of the city to where the road reached a bend. Following the commander’s signal, Oliver parked the car off the side of the road behind a few sets of bushes. Diggle hadn't thought much of their plan, but he also hadn't liked the idea of their going into this without him. He had reluctantly agreed to stay behind, where he would act as a lookout and coordinate with Felicity. 

A second, grimmer reason for his remaining behind was to be witness to what happened in the event they didn't make it back. He would record what he could from outside the ship and attempt to inform the authorities in the event things went sideways. (This was a definite possibility -particularly since Commander Anders, for all her apparent change of heart, had never provided a clear answer to what her ultimate goal was in assisting them.) 

Kara also knew (because Oliver had told Diggle who hadn’t taken it that well and had told her) that Oliver had, even more grimly, updated his will and the provisions made in the event of his death. One particular provision he had made was for Diggle: Oliver had realized that, if something were to happen to him, Diggle might be blamed, since he was officially Oliver’s bodyguard. From what he had said to Diggle, these provisions included a (sealed and hidden in a safe deposit box) letter confessing just enough of his activities as the city’s vigilante to absolve his friend of any responsibility in his employer’s death. 

When they arrived it was to a big field of grass, trees, and nothing significant as far as the human eye could see -Anders knew its location via her implants, however. Kara informed them, however, that she was able to see the ship quite clearly using her enhanced vision. It was, according to Anders, a pretty large ship. The retrieval corps apparently tended more towards the use of shuttles and smaller craft for their missions, keeping their larger ships in orbit. They had reportedly opted to use a larger ship for this mission because of the Commander's presence -this type of thing was reportedly a common courtesy in the upper echelons of the imperial military, and ensured that a superior officer would not have to travel in the relatively cramped confines of a shuttlecraft or smaller vessel. 

The commander had explained to them that all imperial personnel were fitted with several implanted devices -one was a translation implant which enabled them to understand the empire’s many languages, which involved an incredibly complex interaction between the implant and the brain’s language centers to create a complex synergy. This was accomplished at a very young age in order to facilitate a more complete neuronal-machine interaction. Other implants also enabled interaction with various ship components -these were upgraded to more sophisticated devices in the case of imperial personnel. Without implants Kara and Oliver would be understood by other imperial personnel in this system, as they had their own translation implants, but would have difficulty interfacing with and directing most ship’s controls. 

In the case of the retrieval corps, their implants also served a much more sinister purpose: they also functioned as a recording and transmission device which continually sent feedback regarding each operative’s health and current actions. It also, in a pinch and in the event poison failed, served as a backup by detonating a small charge which could eliminate a recalcitrant agent where needed. While Commander Anders had been able to ensure that she was not dosed with poison, she had been less certain of her implants, which were both a required and secret component of life as an officer of the empire. She had admitted that it was possible her implants could be used to track her and even possibly to record whatever she experienced. There had reportedly been persistent rumors of imperial implants being used for such a purpose among the rank and file of the imperial military. She had however been reasonably certain that her implants did not contain any explosive devices, and her matter of fact acceptance of this had struck Kara and the others as a frightening testimonial to life in the empire. 

The commander had stated that the corps relied on their cloaking technology to hide their ships’ presence when on a planetary surface and did not bother keeping a watch for potential intruders, which had seemed odd to her, given how cautious the security conscious retrieval corps usually was regarding potential detection in space. This did however make any approach on their part considerably easier. 

Kara, Oliver, and Commander Anders carefully climbed down the slight incline and walked towards the ship. As they approached the apparent location of the ship, Anders gestured to Kara and Oliver that they should wait as she carefully continued her approach. Kara watched as Anders inched towards the ship's door and closed her eyes. Eventually, it slid open to reveal a tiny compartment: they stepped inside and stood silently as the outer door slid shut. As Anders had explained would happen, the ship, in one of the vanishingly rare automatic functions permitted to imperial machinery, then carried out a scan for potential contaminants. The ship’s lighting was somewhat dim in comparison to the brightness of the morning outside and both Oliver and Commander Anders blinked several times as their eyes adjusted to the darkness. A green light flashed -Anders explained that this indicated the successful completion of the scan as well as the absence of any biological or other hazards on their persons. The inner door slid open to reveal a short corridor. Silently, all three crept forward. 

After reaching and passing through a third door, they reached a junction between two corridors. Anders pointed to the right. “Down that corridor and up two levels is the ship's engine room. You will not have much time.” 

Kara nodded and just as she turned to leave, Oliver caught her arm and pulled her to the side away from the other woman. 

“Be careful.” He said softly, and kissed her. 

The first time they had kissed, Kara had been too surprised and it had been over too quickly for her to do more than feel a certain surprise. This time, however, she felt it all. 

His arms around her, the feeling of his lips on hers, the exhilaration that filled her before, all too soon, it was over. He placed a hand on her cheek. 

She smiled, “You too,” she said. He nodded and then left. Anders followed, wearing a somewhat quizzical expression. 

Reminding herself firmly of where they were and what they were supposed to be doing, Kara turned away. Walking down the indicated corridor she quickly located the stairs which would take her to the upper levels of the ship. According to Anders the ship had five levels altogether, the lowest of which consisted mainly of holding areas for prisoners; the ships were designed to be able to land and remain in place in a range of surface conditions while the corps carried out their principal function. She didn't come across anyone as she climbed the stairs, then looked out a door at the dim corridor beyond. 

Five doors to choose from: Commander Anders hadn't specified what the engine room's door would look like. Kara found what she was looking for behind the third door and entered a large compartment with a large blocklike structure located behind a set of control panels, and which corresponded with what Commander Anders had described as being the crucial components for maintaining engine function. 

As she neared the structure she was blindsided by the sudden agony which swept through her body. Collapsing to the floor, she closed her eyes as pain consumed her and a greenish glow glinted, unseen, in the engine's core. 

* * *

Oliver and Commander Anders quickly reached the first of the prisoner holding areas and Oliver watched as Anders demonstrated how to work the doors' locking mechanism without an implant. (This was 'difficult but not impossible,' according to her, and would enable them to speed things up by having him free some of the prisoners while Anders freed the rest.) 

He stood and waited impatiently as she worked the delicate control panel, showing him how to raise it to the machinery underneath. After considerable wrangling with the recalcitrant controls, the doors finally slid open. 

As they did so, Oliver felt the deck begin to shake under his feet. Anders turned towards him, alarm on her face. “Someone has activated the engines!” She cried out, as prisoners began to stream out of their cell. 

END PART FIVE


	6. Part 6

**Warning: Please note that this part of the story does contain some graphic violence.**

I’d just like to send a shout out to the NSA, CIA, and CSIS (i.e. Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or the Canadian version of the CIA), just in case they’re wondering at my strange pattern of internet searches lately. I truly hope you guys haven’t wasted too much time investigating a lowly fanfic writer, lmao. Because yes I totally searched for how to break someone’s knee with a kick and other things just to make the written fight scene more realistic and I searched missile types and lmao oh god…

Also, please note that this is AU. My beta pointed out to me that there is an episode of ‘Supergirl’ which suggests (i.e. I had forgotten) that Kara does need to breathe. I chose to ignore this for this fic. 

Finally, I’m also ignoring the fact that Clark may well (actually he probably did) tell his cousin about kryptonite. For this fic, I’m assuming that Kara has never heard of it. 

* * *

**-Previously-**

Oliver and Commander Anders quickly reached the first of the prisoner holding areas and Oliver watched as Anders demonstrated how to work the doors' locking mechanism without an implant. (This was 'difficult but not impossible,' according to her, and would enable them to speed things up by having him free some of the prisoners while Anders freed the rest.) 

He stood and waited impatiently as she worked the delicate control panel, showing him how to raise it to the machinery underneath. After considerable wrangling with the recalcitrant controls, the doors finally slid open. 

As they did so, Oliver felt the deck begin to shake under his feet. Anders turned towards him, alarm on her face. “Someone has activated the engines!” She cried out, as prisoners began to stream out of their cell. 

**-And now-**

_Kara!_ Oliver thought in alarm. Had something happened to her? 

“We must get to the bridge to discover what is happening -there should be no reason for the ship to depart at this time! I must get to the command center,” Anders was saying. Oliver shook his head. 

“Something must have happened to Kara -we should see what’s happening with the engines.” 

Anders was shaking her head. “She is Kryptonian -they are a very powerful race. She will be all right. I must discover who has given the order to depart.” Oliver reluctantly followed as she began to hurry down the corridor -they didn't have the time for him to get her to tell him how to get to the engine room and while he might have been able to figure it out based on the instructions she had given Kara, he wasn’t completely certain he wouldn’t lose himself in this unknown ship’s corridors. 

They reached an elevator of some kind and made their way towards the command center, which was apparently located one level up. The room was small, with smooth bulkheads interspersed with various consoles whose markings appeared utterly foreign and incomprehensible to Oliver. 

As they entered the compartment, Commander Anders gasped in shock: a humanoid alien with shiny grey skin was lying unconscious on the compartment floor, wearing what appeared to be manacles of some kind clamped around its upper and lower limbs. 

“What is the meaning of this?” She asked in a clipped, angry voice. 

Roughly ten humans were working at various consoles in the command center. One of them stood in response to Anders’ question. He was a tall reddish-haired man with freckles and pale skin, who greeted them with a cold smile and pointed what appeared to be some kind of weapon in their direction. Several of the others then stood and moved to surround them, pointing more weapons. They searched both Oliver and Anders and placed manacles around her wrists and ankles. One of the strangers gestured at Oliver, indicating that he should move off to the side of the compartment. Once he did so, his wrists were also handcuffed. 

“Commander Anders.” The man’s smile was sharp enough to make one bleed, and it also held a strong element of self-satisfaction. “I truly did not think we would meet under such circumstances.” 

Anders began to speak, and he cut her off, “Don’t bother trying to justify your actions, as it was all recorded via your implant. I trust you did not think the retrieval corps would let the navy interfere in our operations without taking some essential precautions -the recordings from your implant will be transmitted to your superiors and will provide us with ample justification for your… disappearance.” 

He favored her with a terrible smile as she stared back in stony silence. “The empire does hate disloyalty, after all, so I’ll actually doing them a favor by removing their problem.” 

“And removing your problem at the same time, evidently.” Commander Anders responded calmly and with considerable sarcasm. 

The man nodded unapologetically. “Of course. As you can see, we have detained your officer -they are only unconscious, not dead. We took the liberty of stunning them. We are well aware that the true nature of your mission in this system is to investigate the corps’ operations, so your recent... disloyalty has been of great use to us. There is however one thing I would very much like to know.” 

He paused, apparently for effect. “We know why you were sent, but not who. Who has become so interested in our operations?” He asked Anders. 

“I don’t know.” She replied. 

He shook his head. “While you may not now exactly who wrote your orders, I know enough of the navy’s operations to know that you do most assuredly have some idea of who is behind them. I want a name.” 

“No.” 

Her head whipped backwards when he hit her with the butt of his strange gun. 

“Wrong answer, my dear.” 

She shrugged, somehow managing to retain a stoic expression. 

What followed was difficult to watch, as the man rained blow after blow on Anders. Oliver worked at his cuffs, trying to work his hands free. The woman who had manacled him turned to him and laughed at his efforts. 

“Let me tell you something, my man. Not only will you not be able to free yourself from your restraints, but there is literally no point in trying to help. Even if you did manage to get free, you are a simple, unaugmented human -we have many augmentations which make it vanishingly unlikely that you could ever defeat one of us in combat. I would therefore advise you not to try.” She said, smiling brightly at him before returning her attention to the torture being carried out in front of them. 

It lasted for about an hour. Eventually after several stops and starts, shouted questions, and attempts to cause pain using various means, it stopped. Anders was lying facedown on the deck, barely conscious. The alien humanoid was still unconscious. The man who had been beating Anders turned to Oliver. “We have been asking for days and it seems this officer of hers does not have the answers we seek. I wonder if you do, perhaps?” He asked. Oliver looked back at him calmly. 

The man moved towards him, his expression menacing. “I must admit that I don’t know how you do it -merely having to use your language throughout this ‘conversation’ has been incredibly restricting. We learn to do so in order to interact with your world, of course, but it must be so *limiting*.”

“What is it you’re looking for, exactly?” Oliver interrupted bluntly. 

The other man smiled and did not immediately answer. 

_Apparently this one is into petty displays of power,_ Oliver thought to himself. 

“You see, little man, there are factions within our great empire. The commander and her acolyte here represent one faction. We represent another.” 

He smiled again. “I suppose it doesn’t matter whether I tell you now, since none of you will be living much longer… We have been stockpiling our resources, weapons, and manpower, for some time now, because the empire is in dire need of proper leadership. As for what I would like to know… I want to know whether the good commander here said anything regarding her orders for this mission.” 

He paused, the continued, “We do have the recordings of what she has said to you, but recordings can be incomplete. Context can be missed. Implants are not yet a perfect technology and can occasionally be affected by other implants and devices both internal and external. It is not very likely for top of the line military grade equipment, I will grant you, but it does happen. So I need to know what she told you, exactly.” 

Oliver shrugged. “I don’t know anything. I mean, I’m just a primitive unaugmented human from a backwater planet.” 

His head snapped back from the blow he received in response to his flippant comment. As expected, more followed. He let himself collapse more and more after each one, until he finally fell onto his side on the floor. 

The other man stepped away from him, shrugging. “That wasn’t even a challenge, honestly.” The man said, still smirking that annoying smirk as he and his cohorts began to move purposefully around the command center, apparently readying the ship. 

Lying on his side and pretending a greater degree of injury and incapacity than was actually the case, he watched carefully as the men and women who had captured them argued among themselves. 

Taking advantage of their distraction, he inched closer to Anders. He heard her gasp as the discussion above them became particularly animated and realized she might be conscious. Reaching out, he shook her shoulder. 

“Do you know what’s going on?” He whispered as the others continued their argument, seemingly agitated by something having to do with the ship’s controls. She turned to face him, her bruised face shocking. 

“My ship!...” She began, her expression one of panic. 

He squeezed her shoulder. “Please, just explain it to me.” 

She shook her head, visibly trying to calm herself. “These idiots! They are panicking because they do not know how much I and the navy know -and because they are panicking they have not been paying attention to their surroundings. The retrieval corps has traditionally made use of navy staff to fly its ships -it is only very recently that they have begun to distrust us to the point that they have begun to fly their ships without our assistance. It is not surprising to me that their staff are of limited competence. They have just made a mistake -they have inadvertently armed a missile and begun a countdown to launch -their ship's systems were tracking my ship, so when it launches...” 

She paused and took a deep breath. “They will destroy my ship -the navy ship I came in.” 

“They could do that?” He asked, feeling very much out of his depth. 

She winced. “Yes. My ship is larger and better armed, but they will not be expecting an attack from another imperial ship. I had moved the ship closer to your world when I decided to accompany the corps to the surface of your planet, so it is not far from this ship’s current position. They are at a full stop -it will take time for the engines to fully activate to either generate enough momentum to move out of its path or to generate enough power to create a strong enough shield against it. I believe they will not have enough.” Her eyes were wide with worry. 

“These officers will not listen to me, and I am not certain the launch could be aborted at this late stage. If there was a way I could warn my ship and get them to activate the engines sooner, before their sensors detect the launch…” Her voice trailed off. 

Oliver nodded to indicate he understood. “If you were free to move, could you contact them?” He asked, and she nodded. 

“Yes. But I… do not think I will be able to free myself in time.” She thrust her chin towards the viewscreen, which now showed a large structure floating in space. “That is my ship -the launch has not yet taken place, so there might still be time. But I would need to take this group out and I am not in a condition to be able to do so.” 

Oliver smiled. “Actually, I think that I can take care of that for you.” He said, and let his manacles/cuffs fall to the ground. 

He smiled as Anders looked at him in shock and, without missing a beat, turned to the other humans in the room. 

Pushing the pain of his own injuries aside, he vaulted over one of the instrument panels, kicking the one who had beaten him in the side. The man fell. While he was down, Oliver kicked him in the head and the man’s head lolled as he lost consciousness. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted the others advancing on him. 

Kicking backwards, he hit one opponent’s knee, then elbowed another in the face. A roundhouse kick to a third was accompanied by the crunch of bone. He then vaulted over another and caught them in a choke hold while kicking out at yet another opponent. Keeping them from closing on him and being able to attack him simultaneously, he turned around and around as he kicked and punched, ducked and bobbed and weaved and danced in an explosion of violence. He was somewhat surprised when, some time later, he realized that he was the only one left standing, all of his opponents having been rendered unconscious. 

There was a brief moan of pain from one, abruptly cut off. 

Taking a deep breath, he pulled himself away from darkness and back to humanity. 

“I guess an unaugmented human from a backwater planet can still do some damage after all,” he said drolly. “Especially when supposedly high tech cuffs aren’t much of an improvement on the Earth version,” he added as he walked over to Commander Anders and helped her to stand. 

“What do you need?” He asked, and she pointed to an instrument panel. He helped her sit and waited as she punched a series of commands, then sat back. 

“There. I was not able to halt the launch but I have sent an emergency transmission, warning them of the incoming missile. I am not certain... The missile is locked in and will launch in just a few moments. They will have just a few minutes, given their current position.” 

She shook her head. “It may still not be enough time.” 

Oliver considered this briefly, then, “Maybe, maybe not.” Moving beside her, he pointed to the instrument panel she had used to send her message. “Can this send a message to somewhere inside this ship? Like the engine room?” 

Anders sucked in her breath. “I had not considered... yes!” She tapped in a few commands and pointed to the panel, “Speak.” 

Leaning forward, Oliver called out, “Kara, can you hear me?” 

* * *

When Kara awoke, it was to the sensation of pain and to the sound of someone calling out her name. She clapped a hand to her head, trying to quiet both sensations. 

“Kara?” As her insides heaved with pain, she recognized Oliver’s voice. He wasn’t in the room -she was now awake enough to realize that much. 

Painstakingly, she sat up. 

“Kara? Can you hear me?” He said again, and Kara realized the sound was coming from some kind of ship’s communication. 

“Oliver?” She spoke out loud, not certain he would be able to hear her. 

As it turned out, he did. “Kara! We need your help. Please!” 

Her mind seemed to be returning to full awareness, but the pain was still present. “What is it?” She asked. 

“There’s a missile that’s just been launched from this ship -it’s heading for the commander’s ship and they won’t be able to move fast enough to avoid it. Is there anything you can do to stop it?” He asked. 

She nodded, then remembered somewhat fuzzily that he couldn’t see her. “Yes, all right. I’ll see what I can do.” 

Pushing to her feet, she stepped out of the engine room and stopped abruptly in her tracks. 

_I actually feel fine now. How strange is that?_ She thought, then pushed such thoughts aside to concentrate on the problem at hand. 

Flying at superspeed out of the open entrance to the ship’s shuttle bay, she launched herself into space. 

_It’s nice to see the lack of air doesn’t bother me,_ she thought to herself with some amusement. _Otherwise I’d be a little bit… dead right now._

She caught sight of it immediately. It was an ungainly, huge thing, and as she moved closer to it she tried to figure out how to grasp its smooth surface. In the end, she had to punch her hands through its housing, while hoping this wouldn’t detonate the missile’s payload. 

She pushed, pulled, pushed, and pushed again some more. 

Finally, she saw that she had changed the missile’s course. Using her enhanced vision, she could make out the second ship in the distance, and watched as the missile sailed beyond it towards the sun. There were no other objects in its path. 

Turning, Kara headed back. 

* * *

When the fact that Kara had saved her ship became known to her through the ship's sensors, Commander Anders closed her eyes in relief. 

After a brief moment she opened her eyes and turned to Oliver. “Thank you.” She said, the relief ringing through her words. 

Oliver nodded, accepting the thanks for himself, but added, “You’ll need to thank Kara. She's the one who saved your people in the end.” 

Anders nodded, turning to check on her officer. The alien awoke just as she did so, then visibly winced as the manacles were removed from its wrists. 

While Anders helped her still groggy friend to sit up, Oliver picked up the unconscious humans' weapons and searched them to ensure they were not hiding anything else on their persons. 

It was at this moment that the ship’s lights suddenly flickered and dimmed and the various displays around them flickered or, in some cases, went dead. Anders frowned at this, apparently puzzled, then turned back to Oliver as he spoke. 

“So what happens now?” Oliver asked. “I don't suppose you have anything to bind these people's hands with, or somewhere we can put them for the time being?” He asked as he looked at the cuffs he had escaped from. 

Anders looked down at the unconscious people before them, her expression one of cold disdain. “It may be for the best to simply put an end to them, before they cause more... difficulties.” 

Oliver shook his head. “No. It wouldn't be.” 

He continued on as Anders gazed at him questioningly. “I've done the kind of thing you're suggesting. I've killed people -bad people. Doing things like that changes you, and not for the better.” 

“Whatever you think you can accomplish by killing these people, it won't be worth it in the end. Trust me, I know. It may be more difficult to find another way, especially if you've already done things you regret in the past, but I've... recently been made aware that just because I did something wrong in the past doesn't mean I can't choose to change. To take another path.” 

He put a hand out and gripped her arm. “Don't let them push you into doing something you'll regret. Because trust me, if you have any inkling of a conscience, you will regret it eventually if you don't at least try to find another way. There may not be one, but you have to try.” 

Anders inhaled deeply as she considered, then finally nodded. “Very well. I will do so, in honor of you both.” 

Oliver smiled. “Someday, you'll be glad you did.” 

Anders shrugged, not entirely convinced. She moved to a control panel where she attempted another series of commands, then sighed in frustration. “Something is wrong -I can’t seem to contact my ship.” She leaned back in frustration. 

Behind her, her officer blinked and came fully awake. “Did you need to send a message?” It asked. 

“Yes.” Anders said, puzzled. 

It leaned its head backward, closing its eyes. “You will be able to send it now.” It said, just as the lights and instruments came back to life. 

Anders frowned, looking at her officer. “Did you just…?” Her voice trailed off, before she turned to the instruments before her. She tapped out a few commands, then leaned back. 

“I have sent a message to my crew. They will send a team which should arrive shortly.” 

“What's going to happen now?” Oliver asked. 

Anders thought about her reply for a moment. Then, “I am honestly not certain. I should be able to maintain order in this system for the time being and I will do everything in my power to release your people as I promised. There is not much the corps will be able to do to gainsay my authority for the time being given our prior orders and the overwhelming strength of my ship when compared with the corps’ current presence in this system -you may be certain my ship will now be kept on alert to prevent any other events such as this.” 

She sighed. “That is, as long as my ship and my crew support me. Despite the recent changes to my ship’s crew for this mission they should be loyal, particularly as I was able to keep my key personnel. There is not much I can do for those of your people who have already been taken out of this system, but I can do that much to keep my promises. As for the rest...” Her voice trailed off. “I do not believe my superiors will take what has happened lightly. I do not believe that I will be able to have the information which these corps officers gleaned from my implant suppressed -their security systems are second to none for such things, and even if it were not so a transmission may have been sent already. My superiors had suspicions regarding the corps, but my recent actions would not be well regarded -I may not have much time remaining in this posting.” 

“To be honest,” she continued, “I do not know what will happen to me.” 

Oliver was silent for a moment. “Have you considered the possibility of staying here? On Earth?” He asked. 

Anders shook her head. “I have considered it, but no. My place is with my people -I took an oath. I will respect it.” 

It was at that moment that her officer -Ital'- joined the conversation. 

“There may perhaps be some additional considerations.” It said, and Anders turned towards it in surprise. 

Oliver had to admit that he didn't know quite what to make of this strange being. That sense of mystery was compounded by its next words. 

“You should know that there are several important facts which I have been keeping from you. Now may not be the best time to admit this, but you will need to know.” 

“I am Gral.” It said, and Anders' eyes widened in shock. 

_The founders of the empire?_ Oliver thought to himself. 

“There is much about my people that has been forgotten -we preferred it that way. We chose not to enmesh ourselves in your daily struggles.” It continued, its voice modulated in strange, alien tones. 

“I was sent here merely as an observer. The reason being that, while we have no desire to change the degree of our involvement with you, we have seen that our silence has contributed to certain... undesirable factions moving to gain power, as well as several regrettable situations which have prompted us to act. I was sent to observe and report on events beyond our world.” 

“...How? How is this possible? How could you know anything about what is going on if you have not left your world in centuries?” Anders asked, shock still evident on her face. 

The one before her blinked. 

“We are not like you, my dear commander.” It said gently, “We are of you but not of you.” 

Anders' expression was one of extreme frustration. “What does that even mean?” 

Ital' gestured expansively with its hands. “I refer to events which have been forgotten by the descendants of the races we conquered. We were the product of technological developments which led to a war which has long been forgotten by all but us.” 

“Quite simply, we are what you would call machines, but the term is imperfect as it does not encompass the similarities and differences between us and you, or the complexities of what my people have become and what we have evolved to be. And to answer your question… we are aware of what has happened because you use routinely what comes from and is a part of us.” 

It gestured again. “We are not without our own ways of doing things. Despite my... temporary incapacitation at the hands of these humans, I have... arranged for a virus of sorts. Your superiors will not learn of what happened to you on the human world, because this is what I have chosen -neither these humans or their recordings will retain the memory of what you have done here. There is still much for you to accomplish in the empire, Sia Anders, and it will not be achieved in a prison cell. For the rest... all I ask is to remain as I was in order to continue to observe.” 

There was silence in the room for a moment, as Anders processed what she had just learned. Finally, when she spoke, it was in a hushed tone. “I can't believe this.” She said. “All this time, and you were spying on me? On us?” 

Ital' shook its head. “We had to venture out if we were to discover what has been taking place in the empire. My presence among your crew and your lack of knowledge of it is no reflection on your capacity or your leadership.” 

Anders closed her eyes, suddenly appearing very tired. Then, “All right. I do not believe I have a choice and I do require your assistance. I will allow you to stay, so long as you do not prevent me from doing what I must.” 

Ital' gave a short, sitting half bow in acquiescence of her request. “I did promise to follow your orders, and will do so insofar as they do not conflict with the well-being of the empire or any of its peoples.” It said, and Anders blinked in surprise as the rooms' lights fluctuated. “I believe you will find that the other corps staff on this ship have been incapacitated. They will not retain knowledge of their fellow crewmembers' actions on this day -your ship's crew will arrive momentarily and will be able to assist you in calming the corps’ human prisoners.” 

After another moment to ponder what she had just learned, Anders shook herself, putting imperial machinations aside to deal with more immediate considerations. She turned to Oliver, “I wish to ask whether you and Kara would consider staying for a time, in order to assist with returning your fellow humans to your world.” She asked, turning to Oliver. 

Oliver nodded, “Of course.” 

Ital' spoke again, “I was glad to meet with you both -none of us had thought that any of Krypton still survived. I feel I should however warn you -her presence here will also act as a powerful symbol to the people of the empire. It is a symbolism that some in the empire may not care for.” 

Oliver nodded, “I understand. Now though, I think I'd just like to see how Kara's doing. Well, once your people get here, anyways.” 

Ital' blinked in that strange way it had, then, “Of course,” it said, as they all settled in to wait. 

* * *

A short time later Oliver was running through the ship’s corridors, following Anders’ directions to the ship’s shuttle bay. Once there he waited impatiently for her to come. When he finally saw Kara, she had passed through a decontamination cycle and her clothes, which had been both singed as a result of her efforts and deemed to be a hazard, had been replaced by some kind of overlarge jumpsuit. Around them, several people were going about the business of making repairs and carrying out maintenance on the ship’s shuttles. 

He smiled at her as she approached, “What you did was… incredible.” 

Kara laughed, “Yeah, it was pretty cool, wasn’t it?” 

Oliver shook his head. “Nope. ‘Pretty cool’ means you just passed a new level on some video game or something. What you did… that was incredible.” 

Kara shrugged at that, apparently embarrassed at being so praised. 

“Was everyone all right? What happened, exactly?” Kara asked. 

Oliver shrugged. “It’s a bit of a long story. If you want, we could go see about getting something to eat and I could tell you about it. I also want to know what happened to you, too, by the way. What happened with the engines?” 

Kara winced. “Finding something to eat sounds great -and it’s complicated. I don’t know that I understand what happened, myself. I think I passed out.” 

Oliver frowned. “Are you sure you’re all right?” 

Kara nodded. “I feel just fine now. We’ll try to figure it out later, I guess. For now, taking a lunch break sounds really, really nice.” He nodded in reply. 

As Kara stepped towards the door, Oliver put out a hand to stop her. Maybe this wasn’t the best place or time for it, but no one was paying any attention to them and he desperately wanted to say this now, before events got away from them again. 

“I just wanted to ask you something.” He said. 

Kara frowned, “What’s wrong?” She asked. 

Oliver shook his head. “Nothing’s wrong. I… just wanted to say that I…” He winced. “This isn’t coming out right.” 

“What are you trying to say?” Kara asked. 

“I wanted to ask you if you’d consider giving me -giving *us*- another chance. I know I didn’t react well when I learned about your secret. I know I gave you a hard time. I guess I’m hoping you can forgive me for that.” He said. 

Kara sighed, “I don’t know, Oliver. Until recently that really wasn’t what you wanted. What’s changed?” 

“I guess that’s a fair question.” Oliver replied. “The answer is that I guess I needed time -time to accept the revelations about you. Time to think about the fact that I have trouble trusting people. Aaanndd… Like I said before, John told me I was being an ass. And I might’ve realized that he was right.” 

Kara laughed at that, then they were both silent for a moment as she considered his words. 

“I think…” She paused, “I think that I’d like to try. But I also think we should take things slowly.” She said. Then she smiled up at him, “And I think that you… should take this time to convince me.” 

Oliver grinned back at her. “I think I could… see my way to doing that.” He said, and offered her his arm. She took it, and they left the shuttle bay together. 

* * *

“Um… Excuse me. I was wondering whether you could help me…?” A young woman with large, dark eyes was standing nervously near Kara, fidgeting slightly. 

“Can I help you?” Kara asked, giving her a friendly smile. 

“I was wondering when I’ll be able to go back home. The others like me here, they say that you’ve promised people are going to be able to go home. Is that true?” The other woman asked her. 

Kara nodded. “That’s true. I’ll look up when you’re scheduled for, if you want -what’s your name?” She asked. 

“Ann. Ann Davis.” 

Kara paged through the data on the handheld device the imperials had lent her for this very purpose. “I have you listed for five days from now. And don’t worry, someone will come to let you know where you should go when it’s time.” 

“Thank you.” Ann said in relief. Kara watched her walk away. 

It had been almost a month since the battle and despite wanting to be cautious, Kara would have had to agree that things were going pretty well. 

There had so far been no new communications from Commander Anders’ superiors and the mysterious Ital' had so far been as good as its word, although Commander Anders was not entirely convinced that she would not run into problems later on down the road, particularly once she met with her superiors in the empire. 

At the request of Anders and following her promise to release all the corps prisoners still in Earth’s solar system, Kara and Oliver had agreed to stay behind to help act as intermediaries between the prisoners and the imperial personnel, as well as to help figure out how best to resettle everyone. It was proving to be an interesting experience: while most of the people on the first ship had been from Star City and other areas of the United States, the next ships proved to have prisoner populations originating from various other countries. Thankfully, imperial translation software was more advanced than that of Earth and had been programmed with all of Earth’s languages (and while the lack of implants would have prevented them from using the translators once they were away from the ships, these could be programmed to be usable by them while on board the imperial ships), such that it was possible for Oliver and Kara to act as go-betweens with relatively little help from imperial personnel and without the kind of translation snafus that the lack of human interpreters would have entailed on back on Earth. 

Kara and Oliver had arranged for messages to be sent to Diggle and Felicity, in order to reassure them that they were both all right and in order to have them cover for their absence as best they could. 

They had several discussions with Commander Anders and Ital’ about what the empire’s response to recent events might be. Ital’ was confident not only that its people would agree with its recent actions but that they would be able to bring about change in the empire. For herself, Anders was not certain that any of these promises would materialize and she was dreading her next meeting with her superiors (thus far there had been no communication from them): Ital’ had on several occasions demonstrated unusual abilities and knowledge (though it was careful never to do so where others might be aware of what it was doing), but so far they had only its word that what it said was true. 

Regardless of her fears however, once she had made up her mind that something was right and that she was going to follow a particular course, Anders had been as good as her word and had not let anything change her mind, which Kara could respect. (Of course, Kara admitted to herself that she probably wouldn’t have been so grateful for or admiring of the woman’s stubbornness if not for the fact that she was being stubborn in a way that dovetailed with Kara’s and Oliver’s efforts.) The fact that there had been no orders removing her from command and that no new ships had arrived in the system suggested that, in the event that Ital’ was mistaken and that her superiors were aware of what had happened, they were at least willing to keep the whole matter quiet. 

These considerations were an important reason why Anders had wanted Kara in particular to be highly visible: she insisted that Kara’s presence would help her keep the local imperial troops in line. (Kara had been forced to admit that she may have had a point, as the awe she had faced from imperial personnel had been intense.) Commander Anders had also promised to send a pre-recorded transmission to Earth’s governments before departing the system, informing them of the imperial threat and making the witnesses’ eventual stories more credible. 

Kara and Oliver had tried to determine what had made Kara so sick: they had discovered that it manifested exclusively in the proximity of some ships’ engines. When they questioned Commander Anders about the nature of the engines she had at first been understandably reluctant to divulge information regarding imperial military technology. When they had explained the reason behind their questions (while emphasizing that they were placing their trust in her by revealing such a weakness) she had revealed that after the destruction of its people, Krypton and its solar system had been mined rather extensively by the empire when certain substances were discovered there which proved to be quite useful power sources. 

Mostly though, Oliver and Kara spent their days helping with the resettlement of the corps’ prisoners, in order to ensure that everyone was indeed released as promised. (While the imperial personnel were aware of their true identities, Kara and Oliver had asked that their names not be shared with the humans who would be resettled on Earth.) The commander’s staff had provided them with a list of all those who had been abducted and were still in Earth’s solar system, which both of them spent time validating by travelling to many other ships located throughout local space. They also spent time speaking with the former prisoners and reassuring them that they were being returned home. They also spent considerable time mediating between the former prisoners and with Anders’ people, particularly once the people came to know them and look to them to deal with the various problems which arose in large groups of frightened people. 

What had been particularly surprising had been both the numbers of people abducted, which ran in the several thousands, as well as the fact that there were people of all ages, including some young children. Most of the people felt lost and afraid. Some were not in the best of health, and Oliver and Kara had quickly pointed out the need for medical personnel to oversee their care. 

They had both quickly realized that theirs was a monumental task. Once their lists of names had been confirmed and corrected as needed, they had worked with Anders’ staff to establish priority lists with the most vulnerable taking precedence: one particular objective had been to return children to their parents as quickly as possible. The only exception to quick resettlement had been for those who needed medical care -a certain number of individuals had conditions which could be cured or ameliorated using imperial medicine but for which Earth medicine might not be able to provide much help and would be returned last. (In a very small number of cases Kara and Oliver, with the consent of the people involved, had been able to arrange for people who would have died without imperial medicine and for whom the treatments would be lengthy to be resettled in the empire -since the only other option was death some of these people had chosen to take the risk of doing so, despite the Commander’s warnings.) 

In addition, things were complicated by the necessity of returning people to their various countries of origin in order for people not to be stranded in a strange country or locale. Children would need to be able to contact their parents or the authorities and the sick or injured would in many cases require follow-up care, such that the logistics of returning such a large number of people was complex and a massive process which consumed Kara’s and Oliver’s days. 

By mutual agreement, while their days belonged to the complex task of resettling all these people, their nights belonged to them. 

Every night when their long days ended, Oliver would find Kara and they would have dinner together. Some nights they roamed and explored the corridors and crannies of whatever ship they were on. On other nights they simply sat and talked about their lives, their hopes and dreams. They discovered that Commander Anders’ ship had a tiny garden and spent several evenings sitting among the plants. It was a magical time in that, despite all their worries and everything that was going on around them, those evenings they somehow felt as though they had created their own small happy universe. 

So, despite everything that had happened, Kara was actually happy. Oliver seemed pretty happy too and he was as good as his word, doing everything he could to make these moments together special. 

And so it happened that, on one particular night after two weeks and six months of dancing around each other, they were walking towards that tiny garden one evening when Kara told him that he had convinced her. She told him that she was willing to take the plunge on their relationship if he was. 

Oliver’s reply was not delivered in words. 

After several weeks of wrangling, diplomacy, and various logistical nightmares, their task was finally completed and Kara awoke in Oliver’s arms in their quarters to find that the day they would return home had arrived. 

She sighed, and his arms tightened around her. “I don’t want to go either.” He said, and she laughed. 

“I know. It’s weird, given everything that’s happened, but somehow this time has been kind of wonderful. Especially since there’s a lot waiting for us back home.” She said, turning to kiss his shoulder. 

“I guess there’s no reason we can’t make time for this, for us, when we get back.” He said into her ear. 

She turned to face him. “I support that idea. I mean, we have responsibilities, things to do… Can we promise not to let it make us forget this? Forget us?” She asked, and he smiled. 

“I think that sounds like a plan.” He said, and he kissed her. 

Some time later, they took stock of their spartan accommodations for the last time, then left to take the shuttle that would take them back to Earth. Back home. 

END PART SIX


	7. Part 7/final

Author's note: Okay, this part is not for safe for the kids. Here there be sex and all that adult stuff (my beta suggested an R rating for this part, but it is not appropriate for minors). You were warned. :)

This fic is probably closer to R rather than NC-17/E where sex is concerned, but I tend to prefer to warn more rather than less since it lets everyone avoid what might offend them.

* * *

The morning's sunlight was streaming into the room and lighting up the objects it touched, firing them into new colors. 

It was the end of Oliver and Kara's first week back on Earth -they had spent the first few days reassuring everyone they were fine and dealing with the emergencies that had come up while they were away. Kara had discovered that being acting co-CEO of a major corporation meant that sudden absences were amply paid for down the road: it had been bad enough that Oliver had begun to discuss the possibility of hiring someone to be her assistant (which wasn't a bad idea, in Kara's opinion, since her current job description went much beyond the usual assistant's workload). They had also shared the details of their time in space with Diggle and Felicity, who had had no end of questions. 

After a few days spent catching up however, they had kept their promise to themselves and had taken a day off. 

It was a day to put everything else aside in order to spend time just being together. 

It was a new feeling for Oliver, this happiness -something he sometimes wondered whether he deserved, given the life he had led. He was however determined not to let his doubts and fears take over and ruin things. 

Pushing any sad thoughts firmly off to the side, he turned his head towards Kara. This morning they had elected to sleep in, but Oliver wasn't sleeping. She was still asleep, her face and body turned away from him and her hair streaming on the pillow between them. Reaching out, he rolled a blond strand around his finger, then moved over to her side of the bed to wrap his arm around her as she sighed in her sleep. 

He closed his eyes, thinking on what the future might hold. They weren't happy thoughts. He felt Kara stir as she awoke and turned towards him, burying her face in his chest. 

“I can hear you thinking and they'd better not be bad thoughts.” She said with some humor as she put her arms around him. 

He smiled. “Sorry. It's a bad habit of mine.” He said, kissing her forehead. “Go back to sleep -I'm sorry I woke you.” 

She shook her head, ”You didn't. I just know you, so I know what you were probably doing instead of just enjoying the warm sunlight and the quiet and the fact that no one needs us to do anything.” 

She raised her head to face him and smiled. “I'm awake now, anyways,” she said, and kissed him. 

As things usually did with them, the kiss soon deepened to become something more than what it had started out being. He grinned as she pushed him onto his back, coming to lie on top of him. 

“Are you still thinking?” She asked, laughing. He shook his head, still smiling, “Not about anything other than you,” he said, and they kissed once more. 

He lost himself in her kiss, in the feel of her against him, caressing him. In the feeling of completion that came over him every time he realized that he was not alone -that someone truly saw him and loved him anyway. 

It was a haze of *want* and *need* as she sat up and knelt astride him. They both gasped as she lowered herself slowly, so slowly, onto his cock, then began to move. She smiled at him and looked in to his eyes. 

_I think I could fall in love with you,_ he thought as he looked up at her sweet face. He watched as she moved on him, and reached out to caress her breasts, enjoying her sounds of pleasure. Suddenly he grasped her waist and rolled them around to wind up on top of her. 

He sped up his pace briefly as she smiled up at him, then slowed to more leisurely movements. He lost himself in her eyes as he moved slowly, languorously. He wanted to savor each moment, but all too soon he found himself burying his face in her neck as he came. 

He rolled to his side and she cuddled into him as he idly stroked her back. To his mind, most people had a lot of beliefs that were wrong about sex: it wasn’t a competition where someone should keep score. It also wasn’t something you could do well by being some kind of magically superior lover -it was something that you figured out with your partner by communicating what you both liked and didn’t like. This was why by now, and despite the fact that they were still learning each other, he knew that sometimes he and Kara were on the same page and followed the same rhythm and came at the same time and sometimes they weren't and didn’t. He knew that Kara enjoyed their sex life -because she’d told him so. He also knew that even though she didn't come, she still found what they had just done pleasurable.

However, given that they had a lot of time on their hands, there was no reason he couldn’t try to return the favor. 

He kissed her neck, then her shoulder, then slowly worked his way down to her breasts. She made an appreciative sound in the back of her throat, urging him on. His hand moved down her body, between her legs. He knew she didn’t like direct pressure on her clit but preferred being touched elsewhere -he took his time, bringing her near the peak and then drawing back. Kissing his way down her body he replaced his hand with his mouth and savored her taste and the sounds he drew out of her, the sight and sound of her pleasure incredibly erotic. 

When she gasped in orgasm, he helped her ride through it, then moved back to gather her into his arms. 

She smiled and tilted her head back in order to look up at him. “Do we have to go back to work tomorrow?” She asked plaintively, and he laughed. 

“Yeah, I wish we didn’t. This time with you… I can honestly say this has been the happiest time I can remember.” 

She frowned. “Why is that?” She asked, sounding puzzled. 

He sighed. “There’s a lot I haven’t told you -a lot I haven’t told *anyone*, actually- about what happened to me during the years I was away. It wasn’t a good time, basically. I saw and did a lot of things, including some things I’m not proud of.” 

“Before that, I was basically a pretty selfish person. I don’t think I would have known how to share myself with another person.” He explained. 

“What about you?” He asked, “I know you miss your family and that you were brought here by circumstances beyond your control…” He said, his voice trailing off. 

Kara smiled. “Yes, that’s true. I really, really miss them. I wish you could meet my sister, Alex -she’d probably give you the third degree.” Oliver laughed, and Kara leaned her cheek against his arm. 

“I’d really love to be able to go back, but I don’t know if it’s possible. I wonder if I’ll ever find a way.” She continued, as Oliver held her in silent sympathy. “I do love the life I’ve found here, though. I love my work and I love saving people -helping them. I love us, too. So I guess… I’m not sure I want to go back to live there anymore. I mean, of course I want to see my family. I’m just not completely sure that I want to go back there to stay anymore, because there’s also a lot keeping me here.” 

Oliver smiled, and they closed their eyes to enjoy the quiet of the day. 

* * *

Given how big of a company Queen Industries was and how many things could therefore go wrong, particularly when neither Kara nor Oliver was there to deal with them, Kara had been both surprised and relieved to learn that there had been relatively few consequences to their unexpected absence. 

There were however the usual issues to deal with of course, such as the upcoming quarterly review of the company’s pharmaceutical division which Kara was overseeing in conjunction with the heads of that department. This was why, at the end of a long day, she found herself knocking on the door to Oliver’s office in order to run those plans by him. 

“Come in.” He called out, and she walked in to find him on the phone. He rolled his eyes and waved her to one of the seats in front of his desk. 

“Yes. All right, I’ll see what I can do.” He said, and ended the call. Putting down his phone, he explained, “That was Catherine Jeffreys from the Star City Examiner. Apparently she’s writing some kind of story about the city’s history and founding families and she wanted a quote.” He shrugged. 

Kara rolled her eyes, having seen Jeffrey’s gushing coverage of Oliver. “That’s not all she wants, I’d bet,” she said, then winced. “God, listen to me. I sound like a jealous hag.” 

Oliver laughed. “Definitely not a hag, but jealous… Okay, that’s a little flattering.” He said with a grin. 

Walking around his desk, she swatted his shoulder. “Ha ha.” She said, and placed her documents on his desk. “Here, have a look at the outline for the pharmaceutical division’s review. I added a few items…” Her voice trailed off when, instead of looking at the document, he turned to put his arms around her waist. 

“I haven’t gotten to do that all day.” He said, looking up at her with a cheeky grin. 

She smiled. “We do have to work for a living, you know.” 

“Just one kiss.” He said, and she rolled her eyes. 

“Fine.” She said, trying to sound stern and serious but knowing she was failing miserably. Leaning forward, she kissed him softly, then pulled back. “Now let’s get back to work.” She said, her tone all business despite the laughter in her eyes. 

He sighed. “Fine. All right, I guess I have no choice.” His words were mournful, but he was smiling as they got back to work. 

An hour later, Kara was preparing to leave the office for the day. Oliver was completing some last minute work but was supposed to join her. She smiled as he walked out of his office, briefcase in hand. 

“Ready to go?” He asked. She nodded. 

As they walked out of their suite of offices they were joined by Diggle, who had arranged for Oliver's car to pick them up. They waited as Diggle stepped away to speak to the car's driver. 

Glancing at Diggle and seeing that his attention was still on the driver, she leaned over towards Oliver and kissed him. 

“What was that for?” He asked, smiling down at her. 

“Oh, I just haven't gotten to do that all day.” She said, and he laughed. At that moment Diggle turned back towards them and gestured them into the car. 

“Are you coming to dinner with us?” Kara asked Diggle, and he smiled. 

“Sure. Felicity said she was going to meet us there.” 

It was to be an informal dinner for their small group: they had agreed to provide each other with regular updates on the situation in the city and elsewhere. In particular, they regularly discussed what they had gleaned regarding the fallout from their recent adventures. This time, they had elected to meet at a quiet restaurant before heading for Verdant. 

When they arrived, Felicity was already there, sitting in an isolated booth in a corner. As they were seated, Kara was surprised by Felicity's unhappy expression. 

“What's wrong?” She asked, and Felicity winced. 

In lieu of reply, Felicity handed her phone to Kara, who looked down at it in confusion. What she saw made her gasp in shock: it was a picture of her kissing Oliver, taken a few minutes earlier as they waited for the car that would bring them here and which had already been posted online. 

In silence, she passed the phone to Oliver, who scowled. “It didn't take them long.” He said with disgust as he handed Felicity back her phone. 

Seeing Kara's pained expression, he reached out and grasped her hand. “I'm sorry Kara. Are you all right?” 

Kara shrugged, “I'll survive, I guess. It's not like it was unexpected.” She squeezed his hand. “I can't say I like it, but I'll survive.” 

She turned to Diggle and Felicity. “What's the news on the returned people?” She asked, making sure her voice would not carry. It was unlikely anyone would hear them, but it never hurt to be careful. 

Felicity detailed to them the results of her most recent 'digging': their planet's governments still did not know what to make of all the recent claims of alien abductions and were still treating them with (in this case) unfortunate skepticism. Felicity was however hampered by her reluctance to stray too close to any secure government's servers: while she knew she could have gotten in and was pretty confident about her ability to cover her tracks, she hadn't wanted to take the chance when it could lead back to all of them. Kara knew that a message had been sent to several Earth governments by Commander Anders just prior to her leaving Earth's solar system, but they had so far not seen any signs that her efforts were being taken seriously. Diggle's recordings of the exterior of the corps ship had also not proven to be very useful (he had mostly recorded a lot of empty space) and since he had not sent it to anyone by the time Kara and Oliver managed to have a message sent to him and Felicity, they had decided not to use it. 

Mostly it appeared the issue was being ignored, or dismissed as implausible. 

Their discussion was interrupted by Oliver's phone. When he glanced at it, he winced and turned to look at Kara. “That was my sister, Thea. Apparently my mother wants to meet you.” 

Diggle was grinning, just as Felicity coughed rather suspiciously into her napkin. 

“How about we leave you two to discuss this?” Diggle said, rising from his chair. “We'll be outside -you can join us when you're done.” 

“Ah... That's all right, I guess.” Kara said. 

“You coming, Felicity?” Diggle asked, and Felicity shrugged. “Do I have to? It's not every day that I'm right smack in the middle of the city's newest tabloid event.” She said drolly, and Kara smacked her arm. 

“Very funny.” Kara said, and Felicity grinned, before departing with Diggle. 

Oliver turned to Kara. “Are you sure you're okay with this? I'm sorry this was all so sudden-”

Kara placed a finger on his lips. “I'll be fine. It's not completely unexpected -I'd have to be a real idiot not to have figured something like this would happen. I wasn't expecting it to happen quite like this or quite so soon, but... yeah. I'll survive.” 

He nodded, and together they stepped out into the night and the rest of their lives. 

* * *


End file.
